AC is cutting yet again. Some low-lites include:

YEG-YVR 10 flights per day
YEG-YYZ 6 flights per day (this is ridiculous - 9:00am first flight from YYZ is really late, last year had 9-10 flights /day)
YEG-YOW 2 flights per day (increase from one)
YEG-YWG 2 flights per day (one is a downgrade to F-28)
YYC-LHR/FRA 1 daily to each (downgrade to 767-300ER on each route)
YYC-YYZ - hourly service is history
YYC-HNL (no service in sched yet)

I realize AC is losing $$ but the cuts are not acceptable, especially YEG-YYZ where there is no real competition and choice of departure times is essentially the same as when CP was around (I thought merger meant greater frequencies).

Anyone else notice any major changes? YVR-HNL service increases are a positive as is increase in capacity to Australia and better equipment on these routes.

[This message has been edited by Altaflyer (edited 08-24-2001).]

With due respect to my former home town, YEG just does not generate the traffic in the winter months eastward to justify maintaining a heavy schedule, particularly the transcon to YYZ, and the transat/polar LHR service. Flying the YYZ-YEG route monthly or more frequently for the past 20-years, I have seen the loads in the front cabins [of both AC and CP] spiral downward year by year. [And since the days that elite upgrades were started, and on those occasions that I was noted bookedi nto the front cabin, I think I have yet to be unable to move up to Executive/Business, save those times I was on an L or Q fare this past year.]

At the same time, you must remember that adding improved service using non-stops to YOW also diverts a significant portion of the passenger load that once filled the YYZ services. During the winter, with more uncertain weather, late morning starts are more practical. Anyone wishing to do morning meetings in Edmonton is better off taking an evening flight and overnighting, than trying to leave YYZ at 6:30a or 7:00a, fighiting potential snow clogged highways to get to Pearson, etc.

The more critical schedule for YYZ-YEG is late afternoon and evening, where capacity appears to be stable and quite adequate. Look at it this way, these reductions give Mayor Smith another target to bash in his quest for a third term.

Shareholder...what about Calgary then? Surely business is booming in cowtown, not that it isn't here in Edmonton? Perhaps this is just a Montreal thing, afterall the West doesn't really need decent air services!

What truly irks me is that AC said there would be fewer flights but a more spread out schedule. Well the schedule is pretty much the same as AC ran on its own when CP was around. If AC is trying to convince politicians it needs US competition it is certainly trying hard (although perhaps the second YOW flight is aimed at countering this). I personally don't think US competition is a great solution but we may have no choice soon - perhaps Milton has it all figured out, no flying = no losses. Note I did not complain about the LHR flight or the SFO flight ending - these were announced as seasonal and I think rightly so. I do think the YUL and ORD flights should come back though.

An airline cannot afford to operate half empty airplanes, thus the route cutbacks. Calgary service may have been paired back, most likely by consolidating low-yield flights in the schedule. Given the experience out of YVR this past summer, with flight scehdules being altered daily based on loads and aircraft availability, AC is fine tuning based on now proven booking levels. They now know when the demand is present, and thus when to cluster more flights, and when to spread them out. Calgary may be booming, but flight patterns may be into the US and westerly more than to YYZ. Remember, AC has also added more routes into the US that now no longer require a connection in YYZ. This, like the expanded YOW services from both YYC and YEG, reduce demand on the trunk YYC/YEG-YYZ route.

And you seem to be discounting the impact of C3K, and even WestJet on long haul traffic from both cities. C3K will have up to three flights a day into YYC. And as long as FlyerAl is around, WestJet will have its links into southern Ontario via its YHM gateway. This has proven a viable route for them, and taken many thousands of AC back cabin customers, also reducing aircraft capacity needs on the YYC-YYZ route.

When I flew YEG-YYZ between 1998 and 2000, I noticed a distinct change in the make up of the front cabin. Many of the execs and managers who were flying with me no longer report to head offices in Edmonton. Telus has moved to Vancouver, and that represented a lot of regular CP passengers between YEG and YYZ. CTV shifted its western Canadian operations from Edmonton and Calgary to Vancouver, so its execs all overfly Alberta now. Same with Global. CN and CP's links are directly with Montreal, not Toronto. Oxford Properties has moved out of Alberta. There are just not the corporate links as there were even five years ago. All this has an impact on airline routes and capacity.

Another factor to consider is aircraft size. The previous winter AC used mainly A319s with A320s at the popular times. Mayor Smith went to YUL to argue that the service needed 767s for cargo reasons. The new sched has 2 767s per day. That would account for some of the decrease.

The extra YOW flight is great. I Always avoid YYZ when possible.

I am confused about the flights to Hawaii? How many flights a day, from each of the Canadian cities, does AC offer to Honolulu, or Maui -according to the summer schedule, and according to the fall/winter schedule?

You're right--it is starting to get confusing. I have been looking mostly at YVR flights for the past couple of months.

Summer schedule:

YYZ-HNL one flight daily 3127 leaves around
6 p.m, arrives HNL around midnite

YVR-HNL one flight daily most days (3133) leaves at 7:15 p.m. arrives at 11:15. I think there was also another flight leaving 1/2 hour later (21?)on weekends arriving 11:40 or so.One of these was CP, the other AC. Seemed like duplication to me!

YVR-OGG one flight daily Fri, Sat., , Mon nite leaving 6:30 arriving 10:30 (flt 23)

Don't think there is a direct YYZ-OGG flight summer or winter.

Winter schedule:

This is all over the place , as far as I can see. As Empress has said, they still may be working out the details, and there may still be duplicate flights in the database.

YVR-OGG still the Fri, Sat, Mon nite flight, but they appear to have added a Sunday flight 14:00-18:00

YVR-HNL still the 7 p.m departure to hook up with flights to OZ (3133), and theyve added
the 8: 30 a.m. departure 7 days a week as well. I also saw, on certain days, a flight leaving YVR at 2 P.m. as well (I think Dec 26,for example)
I can't speak to YYZ flights.
It remains to be seen if they will run the YYC-HNL flight again this winter.