Originally Posted by
Academic
But why would you fly AC if you could go with NZ?
People rag on AC, but I've flown NZ a couple times and while it was nice, I wouldn't pay up for it over AC. If the prices are comparable, I would probably favor whichever I get more miles on.
NZ charges a TON for the flights to/from YVR, so I'm surprised it took this long for AC to get in on the act, but I guess they wanted to jump on Australia first. That said, what I don't get is what exactly they think they'll do with this. I supposed they'll route all their own traffic on to this flight rather than ever sending pax to NZ. But like a handful of months, a few days a week, while NZ is 7 or more flights a week...I don't really see any competitive advantage for AC.
I do kinda expect this grow though, almost all of these routes from YVR introduced in the past year or two clearly seem to be doing well, because they've all started like this and been up-gauged, or more days added, or year round service. The only ones that seem not to have are the European summer routes to CDG/ZRH/FRA.
As a YVR employee and obviously living here, I'm in favor of any new routes from any airlines here...as long as it's not just another Chinese carrier. What I'm BEGGING for is SOMEONE to fly to Central America, PTY makes the most sense, and CM makes the most sense especially with their MAX 9s being delivered. It seems the range is ok and I don't think it could support a widebody, but Aeromexico has made a good go of things here, I wanna see STAR jump on this and fly to a WAY better connecting airport in PTY and make getting to all of South and Central America much easier.