Originally Posted by
Jonsie
I agree it is not false advertising as you can indeed see the plane, but thats not what I mean. When they announced routes for the 787 they clearly said the 787 would replace the 767 on the YYC LGW route. So it is actually misleading. Fair enough if they don't yet know winter schedules but AC seem to know what they're doing. If I'm wanting to fly J to LON in November, WS aren't even an option at this time. They are potentially missing out on $$$ by not knowing their strategy. I find it bizarre and archaic they don't know what to do with their 787 8 months down the road.
There is another airline that flies J to LON year-round, you know ;-)
AC doesn't always "know what it is doing" either. As another poster has said, they simply take last year's winter schedule and tweak it. It is quite possible that AC could have a direct flight and you get rebooked on a connection on a completely different aircraft because a route is cut or aircraft is switched. AC has also been doing widebody flying with business class for many years and has a very good general idea of where to deploy its fleet. Business-class flying is new to WestJet and winter is usually a low period for widebody flying. My best guess is that YYC-LGW remains 3x weekly and goes to a 789 and one frame goes to YYZ to run YYZ-LGW. I imagine YYC-YYZ will keep at least one 789 run.
WS has mentioned they may switch their Hawaii routes to all 7M8 next winter. They already run one OGG run from YYC on a 7M8 (sometimes 2x daily one 7M8 and one 763). They certainly will have the frames for it.
With that in mind, who knows what they will do with the remaining 789 and 763 capacity in winter; 3 more frames will be on their way by then also.