Originally Posted by
flybit
However AC is not a competitive airline, so it cannot compete with other airlines very easily. Its one of the least efficient airlines in North America.
Nope.
The reason we don't fly more fifth freedom routes is because many of them aren't really routes that make sense. With a fifth freedom route you are competing with local carriers on either end (and who usually have the requisite market strength, a sales force at one if not both ends, etc), you incur double layover costs for crews, the flights incur a stop to/from final destination so it's longer for the originating pax, etc. Before the liberalization of multilateral air agreements (eg when only certain carriers could fly to/from certain places) and aircraft that could fly almost anywhere (eg 380, 787, 777), some of these fifth freedom routes were very valuable, but since then it doesn't always make a whole lot of sense to fly these when the local market (at either end) can have a nonstop instead.
SCL-EZE still works for us because the market there prefers a double overnight, and there is a lot of business traffic in SCL and a lot of leisure traffic in EZE so by adding the tag on it allows us to fill the plane with both kinds as well as preventing the plane from sitting all day on the ground.