Originally Posted by
lespoir
It's mostly the combination of many factors....to say YVR is better geographically positioned to the western part of the United States is not supported by the facts that there are not a lot more western states routes from YVR than YYC, probably 2-3 more routes. But there are a total of 14 US destinations from YVR while YYC had only 8. And many of those YVR to the US routes are heading to the eastern States. So you could argue that if you add more US routes from YYC, then YYC is equally well positioned, just like YVR.
I'm talking about the position of Vancouver and Calgary on the globe. All things being equal*, if you want to fly from coastal US population centres to major Asian cities, YVR is closer to your optimal route than YYC. In a business where margins can be 2% or less, why do you want to fly 10% further for no reason?
* and they're not equal. Every other factor is in YVR's favour: it's bigger, it has a stronger, more diversified economy, it has stronger ethnic community ties, it has tens of thousands of astronaut families shuttling back and forth in paid J regularly, the airport has more capacity and facilities to begin with, etc.