Originally Posted by
FlyerJ
I doubt AC would ever do a TB lounge in Calgary ... when there's hardly any mainline cross-border any longer. Former destinations have been handed over to UA (IIRC, both SFO and ORD were once mainline AC) or downgraded to Rouge (LAX, LAS, PHX, and someday soon OGG).
The only real AC mainline dest that's left ex YYC is New York. (IAH is Express, as are SEA and PDX). Not really the profile for an ideal lounge spot, unless UA was clamouring for one.
I'm sure the Rouge P&L would rather not have to pay for lounge costs, and United seems to have a lock on Calgary's transborder business travel market without any Star lounge (and, ditto, without the cost of a lounge).
Oddly, the only airline-provided lounge access at Calgary's crossborder term is Westjet ... with their free-lounge-vouchers benefit for their Golds.
Originally Posted by
PointWeasel
This is the most telling part about YYC Transborder lounge access.
UA
DEN, IAH, ORD, SFO
AC
EWR, LAX, PHX, LAS, IAH, SEA, PDX
Aircraft types range from 737-900 with UA down to the dreaded CRJ.
With the $30 AIF charged by YYC, you would think they would have come to some type of agreement with AC. But alas, no.
There's an argument to be made that perhaps a YYC TB lounge should be a UA lounge or an AC/UA JV, but the need is clearly there.
IAH must be one of the most profitable TB routes for both AC and UA. I take that route regularly, as do a number of my colleagues, and the fares are usually extremely expensive relative to other flights of similar length. J is always packed with either paying pax or SEs and maybe an E75K (almost impossible for E50Ks to get upgrades, difficult even for E75Ks).
DEN also seems to attract a good deal of business travellers, based on the people I see on that flight when I take it, and I know there's a lot of oil and gas corporate traffic back and forth.
EWR also mainly a businessperson's flight.
Don't forget the wealthy oilmen who have winter places down south that use PHX or LAX to get there.
By far the #1 complaint I here from frequent travellers about YYC is the lack of TB lounge. I'll be extremely dismayed if there isn't one in the new TB area. It would be a vastly better use of AC's dollars than YXE or any of the others mentioned above.