Originally Posted by
Eastbay1K
LAX/YYZ was one of the shortes lived routes in AS history. On the other hand, it had the best first class service of any flight that AS offered in the past thirty five years - by a longshot. (Didn't VX also try SFO/YYZ for about a minute and a half?)
I actually really like your posts and think a lot of what you share with is us is spot on. But…(you knew there’d be a “but”). I opened both YYZ and VVO with AS. Myself and my boss Kit were tasked with getting both operations up and running. Both destinations should’ve been profitable base on the projections and the actual number of passengers. They failed because the A/C performed worse than projected. The 727 then the MD83 just were horrible plane choices. ANC as a Russian Far East gateway didn’t help the 27 or the MD. Both jets needed to stop in GDX. And LAX-YYZ was stretching the MD range. However, both routes back then and I’d argue today, with a MAX, I believe would be profitable. The issue is how profitable? Russian service ( pre war ) based on 1993-94 info could do maybe 2 times a week. YYZ, based on the 92-93 projections we used could be daily. The problem now is those routes early 1990’s ROI, even with the MAX, would be well below the ROI criteria AS was using when I retired. While I think you might see some new international routes, I really believe that AS sees the MAX family first and foremost providing cheaper maint/fuel costs for whatever they’re flying or might fly. The increase range adds schedule planning flexibility. I know for a fact that -10 extra cargo space has that side of the house excited while they figure out what series will be the next pure freighter. And of course, like all of us who use AS on Trancons, I hope that they might, some day, listen to all of us and carve out a sub fleet of lie flats! A man can dream….