winnipegrev

Iceland Express tried Winnipeg service several years ago and failed. With Icelandair's more expansive European connection options, it may have a bit more success this time. Still I doubt it is a high priority.

The schedule was:

Reykjavik – Winnipeg 12JUN11 – 28AUG11
5W485 KEF1630 – 1740YWG 73W 7
5W486 YWG1840 – 0540+1KEF 73W 7

YoYUL

I can almost guarantee you YOW is on FI's radar. 'On radar' does not mean 'tomorrow' like a lot of people on here evidently think. 'If the demand was there, an airline would already be flying it' you hear over and over again. If that were true, airlines would never successfully launch new routes and every route in the world that needs air service would already have it. I stand by what I said in September, AC is leaving themselves vulnerable to new entrants (again not necessarily tomorrow) by reducing YOW-FRA to summer-seasonal. YEG's proven that already with FI going year-round in a real hurry and the imminent announcement of KL's entry into YEG that they've shot themselves in the foot by sacrificing YEG-LHR in the name of boosting YYC loads. This YOW-FRA cut is no different with needing to boost winter YYZ and YUL loads.

When the MAX arrives, not only YOW, but YQB and YWG are perfectly sized MAX markets. If YOW wasn't underserved internationally, how is it that YYT & YHZ next summer will have more weekly transatlantic departures than YOW will and YHZ's capacity is higher. Keep in mind YHZ & YYT combined have less than 1/2 the population of YOW.

YOW easily bleeds 1/4 million or more pax per year to YUL in mostly transatlantic VFR traffic leakage...i.e. a large target audience for FI and ripe for the picking. Cutting YOW-FRA for the winter will only worsen that YUL leakage and lead biz pax to doing so and mostly NOT to AC...see the person above talking about choosing the KL bus as an alternative. Keeping in mind, I'm defending YOW even as a YULer.

Yes TS did operate a token YOW-CDG flight for 2 summers for 1/2 a summer season and priced 30% above YUL & YYZ fares. It was nothing more than a blockade measure to disuade Zoom from adding YOW-CDG so that they could protect their tens of thousands of YOW leakage pax.