Originally Posted by
Cheese
Though I hate to say it, I'm a bit doubtful that the flight will be from Calgary -- it's awfully competitive, with Transat, BA, and AC all flying it. Crossing my fingers though
YYC-YVR was pretty competitive in 1996 with both AC and CP operating 15x daily n/s flights each. WJ managed to carve out a pretty good business out of that.
WJ will have close to 140 737's and Q400's feeding their network from points in Canada and even the US by the time the first flight is operated.
Transat has zilch feed. They rely solely on O&D traffic. It was the same with all the other charter type airlines that have come and gone. No feed or uneconomic double drops.
I'm not sure if WJ will continue to codeshare with BA once the flights begin.
There is the school of thought that BA might be of the mind that, strategically, "the enemy of mine enemy is my friend".
If that is not the case, BA will no longer get domestic Cdn feed at their gateways, unless they are prepared to pay a healthy dollar for it.
WJA has always done thing a little differently and I would expect to see some, but not all, of the same when gateways are announced. In the meantime, the competition will chase ghosts and degenerate their yields and route profitability.
