The flip side of this is that Jazz may well go further in the direction of, say, a Skywest where the company flies for more than one airline (yes, I know Jazz already runs TC flights). I flew UA to SAT recently and Delta back. Both YQR legs, going and returning, were operated by Skywest crews based in DEN. With the way WS is going now, it isn't inconceivable that they might subcontract some flying to a company like Jazz (the fact that they wet leased 757 service to Hawaii this year tells you that everything is on the table where such things were completely against the WS ethos a few years ago). For some markets that WS is in or could conceivably get into to truly compete as a domestic airline the 737 is too large, so expansion could mean contracting out some flying to Jazz or someone else. I can see WS wanting to get into serving some routes with Embraers and Q400s but don't see them wanting to add training, maintenance, and crew capacity.

I always liked the Jazz branding and like flying Jazz because the crews are more consistently friendly on the routes I fly (just like the Skywest folk are consistently better than the UA folk).

There is a big difference between companies like Colgan and Skywest, and it remains to be seen whether Sky Regional is vastly different from Jazz or whether the AC safety and reliability ethos carries over to them too.

I get even sicker on trains than I do on planes or in cars. No idea why, but it's barf city.

Me - received great service from them lately :) ...

You misunderstood my post.. it was referring to the union and its' members. I've had some good service lately too. :)

The Q400 is a great aircraft, big tube, high ceilings and very quiet for a TurboProp. It's good for AirCanada to get another regional partner into the mix...Jazz needs a little competition to keep costs down. Regional flying works well in the US because there are number of regional players all fiercely competing for the flying contracts offered up by the mainlines. In many cases the regional operations perform better than the Mainline operations.
As a traveller it makes no difference (other than the tube type) you can still acrue and burn miles on their flights and connect with mainline, who controls all the schedule and pricing decisions.
Regionals offer a number of important benefits, more frequency, fast loading aircraft, lower cost capacity and when managed properly, young energetic crew, although Air Canada is doing well in this department.
Keep up the good work AirCanada - we like what your doing, for the most part.

WE do???

Was this posted? These outsourced pilots/baristsas need more taxiing practice? ;)
Let's hope they have mastered some of the more advanced features of the aircraft. :p

May be best to avoid this new outsourced service until proven as safe as Jazz, imo.

http://www.cp24.com/servlet/an/local.../?hub=CP24Home


Montreal-bound passengers at Toronto's Billy Bishop Airport were delayed for more than an hour after a plane's wheel sank into the rain-soaked ground and became stuck Tuesday night.

The odd incident occurred when the plane was taxiing at a low rate of speed and made an expected sharp turn to get onto the runway, Air Canada spokesman Peter Fitzpatrick told CP24 on Wednesday


----------

A person who contacted CP24 about the incident said the Air Canada Bombardier Q400 aircraft got stuck at about 9:15 p.m.

No one was injured and the passengers were taken off the plane about 35 minutes later, the person said.

Air Canada began offering flights between Toronto and Montreal out of the city's island airport Sunday

Air Canada spokesman Peter Fitzpatrick said “an unfortunate combination of circumstances” led to the Tuesday night incident, which, grounded the plane and its 16 passengers just three days after the airline resumed flights out of the island airport.

http://www.thestar.com/news/article/...rport-mud?bn=1

16 passengers? Hmmmm.

Nice, 3 days into the service and there's already a taxiway excursion! "Keeping costs down" generally means underpaying and overworking (maximum duty days, CDOs, etc.) their crew. Q400's are more difficult to operate than some mainline-type jets, their crew deserve at least the respectable level they are earning at Jazz. Jazz has raised the bar in terms of pilot/other crew quality in the last few years, I prefer not to have the wrong type of competition undoing those advances.

A race to the bottom is not a good thing.

Neither has the bland unilinguilism that AC likes to choose for some of their terminology :)

It's all about bilingualism at times.. In Canada, an airline that's known to respect the french as well as the english, the airline needs to make the extra effort to pick the right name as well.

To be honest, a bilingual name could end up being just cumbersome. How many airlines in bilingual countries use two names? SA used to be Suid-Afrikaanse Lugdiens but it's simply SAA now (I can't even find Afrikaans on their website), SN is simply Brussels Airlines (which is neither French nor Dutch) and LX is Swiss in any language. I really support bilingualism, but aviation/ICAO is so Anglo-centric that there's not much point to deviate from the norm. Even Lufthansa, which is one of the few major airlines without an English name brands its regional service as "Lufthansa Regional". Of course, all this only makes the "Jazz" name better, because it is bilingual!

Except for French, German and Italian !

It is their marketing name in French, German, Italian and Romansh.