Air Canada expanding its service to Copenhagen
 

http://www.cph.dk/en/about-cph/press...to-copenhagen/

Air Canada wants to fly even more Danish travellers to international destinations via Toronto. From there, passengers have a vast choice of flights to US, Latin American and Caribbean destinations, for example.

There is a difference between winter and summer. This is true for air traffic, as well – the summer season normally being the busier period. Air Canada offers daily flights from Copenhagen to Toronto during the busy summer season, while flights have traditionally been cut down in winter.

That is about to change, however. Come next winter, Star Alliance airline Air Canada will increase its flights from Copenhagen from three to four a week.

“Our busy business travellers have long been requesting a Monday departure from CPH in the winter season in order to fit as much as possible into their business trip and return at the end of the week without too many stopovers. With our fourth weekly winter frequency, we are meeting this request,” said Marc Sam, Air Canada Country Manager.

Copenhagen Airport's Director of Airline Sales & Route Development Ole Wieth Christensen notes that leisure travellers also get additional options.

“This will make it even easier for Danish travellers to fly to Canada, and not least to use Air Canada's hub at Toronto Pearson International Airport, which offers convenient onward connections to the USA and South America, for example,” said Ole Wieth Christensen.

A founding member of the world's largest airline alliance, Star Alliance, Air Canada has 27,000 employees and operates flights to 178 destinations – a large number of them from Toronto Pearson International.

The added weekly winter flight from CPH will be on Mondays using one of the airline's Boeing B767 aircraft.

It's also pretty good for us on the Canadian side for exploring northern Europe as no one else flies non-stop to Denmark, Sweden, Norway, or Finland from YYZ for most (perhaps all?) of the year. Also the FRA flight from YYZ has been considerably more expensive in Y than CPH any time I've checked prices. When I flew this route March 2014 there were quite a few empty seats though.

Now we just need AC to add a reasonable number of codeshares to other destinations in Europe and beyond with SAS from CPH (and Swiss from ZRH/GVA). Don't know why they have this seeming obsession with funneling everyone through FRA and MUC (OK - maybe it's the profit sharing agreement with LH and UA).

I wish I understood AC's decision to focus solely on serving the Nordics via CPH (this isn't new, it's been true for 40 years). At a minimum, they should be adding ARN rather than increasing capacity at CPH.

ARN (and OSL for that matter) is almost as big as CPH, and Sweden is both much bigger, and far more important as a trading/tourism country for Canada, than Denmark is.

I get that CPH is a slightly better Star Alliance connecting airport, but it's a marginal advantage, given the increase in European service across the board.

Going from three to four per week, and you would expect adding extra destinations? Atomizing further... Makes no sense whatsoever.

My main point is that serving CPH makes no sense vs ARN, if you have to pick one.

"Atomizing" does make sense sometimes btw. AC added GIG instead of increasing LIM from 3x weekly - I am not saying I think they should have increased LIM, just that there are some regions with traffic patterns where densing up a particular route isn't the only or best option.

GIG vs LIM? What the devil do those two have in common except that they are on the same continent?

wait, this just says increase from 3 to 4 flights a week... why does it need a press release?

LOL +1 on this - We're not even talking the same thing. ARN and such are like an hour flying from CPH. GIG -> LIM is serious distance. GIG flights would not negatively impact LIM flights under any circumstances... They're so far apart! Thats like saying adding a flight to IST is going to Impact Dublin. Not likely.

It is interesting to note though that AC seems to be boosting a lot of its Euro destinations this fall. AMS got another run, CPH just got another run, Rome is going to run for 2 extra months 3 days from YYZ and 2 days from YUL instead of 3X to Milan.

It will be most interesting to see what AC itself has to say about its strategy tomorrow.

Exactly! I opened this thinking maybe a flight to CPH from somewhere other than YYZ. Fingers crossed for YVR-CPH. :)

Brutal.

Not convinced. CPH appears to be the SK main hub, not ARN. Plus, ARN is further away. Most of Scandinavia is well served from CPH.

Anyway, looking at my patterns and final destinations, I have travelled to CPH once, BGO twice, OSL twice and GOT twice. Never to ARN... At least as a final destination. I once connected, going I think from OSL (but maybe GOT) to CDG.

(Apart from our last trip to BGO, this was all before AC started CPH though.)

A month ago on a Saturday YYZ-CPH, Y was oversold, and O and J only had a few seats left.

Canada trade with Sweden is more than 2x that of Denmark.

CPH not the dominant SK hub any more, hasn't been for a while. From wiki....

SAS flights from ARN: Aalborg, Alicante, Amsterdam, Ankara (begins 30 June 2015), Athens, Barcelona, Bergen, Berlin–Tegel, Billund, Birmingham, Brussels, Budapest, Chicago–O'Hare, Copenhagen, Dublin, Düsseldorf, Edinburgh, Faro, Frankfurt, Geneva, Hamburg, Helsinki, Hong Kong (begins 10 September 2015),[33] London–Heathrow, Málaga, Manchester, Milan-Linate, Milan-Malpensa, Moscow–Sheremetyevo , Munich, Newark, Nice, Oslo–Gardermoen, Oulu, Palma de Mallorca, Paris–Charles de Gaulle, Prague, Riga, Rome–Fiumicino, Saint Petersburg, Stavanger, Tampere, Thessaloniki, Tromsø, Trondheim, Turku, Vaasa, Vilnius, Zürich
Seasonal: Bastia, Biarritz, Bodø, Bologna, Bristol, Cagliari, Chania, Dubrovnik, Gazipaşa, Innsbruck, Malta, Naples, Olbia, Palermo, Pisa, Pristina, Pula,, Sarajevo, Split, Tel Aviv–Ben Gurion, Venice–Marco Polo

SAS flights from CPH: Aalborg, Aarhus, Aberdeen, Ålesund, Alicante, Amsterdam, Ankara (begins 6 June 2015), Athens, Barcelona, Beijing-Capital, Bergen, Berlin-Tegel, Billund, Birmingham, Bologna, Bremen, Brussels, Bucharest-Otopeni, Budapest, Chicago-O'Hare, Dublin, Düsseldorf, Edinburgh, Frankfurt, Gdańsk, Geneva, Gothenburg-Landvetter, Hamburg, Hanover, Helsinki, Linköping, London-Heathrow, Luxembourg, Málaga, Manchester, Milan-Linate, Milan-Malpensa, Moscow-Sheremetyevo, Munich, Newark, Newcastle, Nice, Oslo-Gardermoen, Palanga, Palma de Mallorca, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Poznań, Prague, Pristina, Rome-Fiumicino, Saint Petersburg, San Francisco, Shanghai-Pudong, Stavanger, Stockholm-Arlanda, Stuttgart, Tel Aviv-Ben Gurion, Tokyo-Narita, Trondheim, Venice, Vilnius, Warsaw-Chopin, Washington-Dulles, Wrocław, Zürich
Seasonal: Bastia, Biarritz, Cagliari, Chania, Dubrovnik, Faro, Gazipaşa, Ivalo, Kiruna, Montpellier, Naples, Kittilä, Palermo, Pisa, Pristina, Pula, Salzburg, Split, Thessaloniki

I would have been happy to fly SAS LHR-CPH-FRA, but their pricing was about triple the price of LHR-FRA n/s. BASed on this i don't hold out hope for SAS doing more intraEurope codeshares with AC.

I wonder if prorates is the reason for SAS and Swiss not doing more codeshares with AC and the rest of star. Mileage based prorates might make it uneconomical for SAS to fly the codeshare.

Not on *A, but Finnair has 3x weekly YYZ-HEL. Not so great for onward connections outside of Europe but certainly a less painful transfer than LHR if you're headed somewhere else in northern Europe (e.g. OSL, ARN, TLL).

I agree that the codeshares often make the fare computation easier. However - a quick look at the fare routings for most AC fares into Scandinavia allow a CPH connection onto SK flight number as part of the normal fare setup. Thus, the codeshare would not help at all.

It is however great to get the AC YYZ CPH frequency higher.

Not sure how you conclude CPH is no longer the main hub, when it still features flights to quite a few more destinations than ARN, according to the list you posted?

I like connecting at CPH as an alternative to my usual LHR and FRA... so for me, great news.

CPH is definitely more convenient for Scandinavia as a whole. Good connections to almost everywhere by flight or train.

Given how small Scandinavia is, I'm surprised there's as much service as there is.

On a semi-related note, why is SAS not part of the trans-Atlantic JV with AC/UA/LH/etc.?

From what I've read, much of the recent profitability of North American airlines is due to capacity restraint during the (slow) economic recovery. With all this addition/expansion of service by AC, is anyone else worried they haven't learned their lesson and will be back in trouble when the next downturn hits?

worried... hoping....

Who in business anywhere has "learned their lesson" exactly? We live in a time of financial lunacy.

It's a good question, one many analysts ask us. Without getting into a debate on the merits of our expansion plans, if you like I can shed some light on this. The truth is we were underperforming in comparison to the American carriers. They had six legacy carriers and merged to create three of the largest in the world, while we were stagnant at 56-58 widebodies for much of the last decade. Our schedule, network, natural geographic position (e.g. flying from a US city to Asia usually requires one to fly over YYZ or YVR anyway, and if you're making a connection YYZ/YVR are much more pleasant airports through which to connect than JFK or ORD or SFO), etc., all lends credence to our growth plans - which you can see is targeting international (vs regional) expansion and more sixth freedom traffic. Over the past five or six years, our new routes have seen roughly a 90% success (vs 50% about a decade ago), and many (such as CPH) are seeing added capacity YoY. There are certainly those that love to deride us (and the Leafs...after all, it is the national pastime in Canada :p ), but I would certainly hope those same people are able to objectively look at the industry and our rising place in it.

Using the American carriers as examples of capacity reduction isn't a great benchmark as the markets, assets, etc. are different. We're also keenly aware of the cyclic nature of this industry and do have many plans in place in case of an industry downturn which would allow us to weather the storm, such as swing capacity and cheap or paid-off aircraft.

Hopefully that gives a little insight into why we are doing what we're doing!

Now they just need to put the 787 back on the route!

Wait what?

I have a July booking that's still on the 788. Although I'll admit you made me just go look it up :p

I think its 788 service until end of October then goes back to 763

Haha, sorry. It's a frequent route for me, but past fall 15 it's reverting back to the old pods.

:(

Thanks for chiming in. Glad to see your post didn't set off a bunch of spiteful rhetoric.

I'm interested in your reference to the analyst community. What kind of specifics/details do you give them re your expansion plans and contingency arrangements?

Me too, I'm rather surprised actually! :p

I can't speak to that directly, but I would invite you to listen to our analyst calls/webcasts when we announce our quarterly results. You can find the link here: https://www.aircanada.com/en/about/investor/

CPH is an excellent choice for Europe Connection compare to other so-called "major hubs" like LHR or FRA. Flew several times between CPH and YYZ, the airport shopping area like Yorkdale or Sherway Gardens in Toronto. However the price is bit high (25% VAT!!??) Good to hear AC had add one more flight to CPH. Nevertheless, the SAS ground crew handling AC flight and the SAS lounge are kinda disappointed in my personal experience.

Fair enough. I will do that, thx.

What are the trade numbers for the Öresund area vs. the Stockholm area?
Canadian companies working with tech companies in the Lund-Malmö area want CPH flights, not ARN flights. For companies in the Gothenburg area, CPH flights work just as well as ARN flights.
Why would AC offer both ARN and CPH flights when CPH flights serve major Swedish areas better than ARN flights would?

This is actually a very interesting post from Ben. Obviously TLV is not Asia, but I noticed an increase of pax from the U.S. on those flights back in late 2012. I had posted once in another thread that I had asked some of them why they were flying AC via YYZ to TLV. (These particular pax conversations were on more than one flight and they indicated they had originated in LAX or SFO and were traveling to TLV for tech business/conferences)

The answers why AC via YYZ were:
1. They liked the service
2. More than one indicated they refuse to go through any New York area airports
3. If they were UA FFs, AC had an advantage over LY
4. LY was not always available on some of their travel dates.
5. On the return to Canada (and just as with my AC 4 flights for eg.), U.S. Customs cards are handed out onboard which also makes the connection process easier.

Yes, I've already pointed out that these onboard conversations were a small sample size, but it still provided me with some interesting insight.

Are you sure? :)

Funny guy.

Ben had mentioned Asia in his post. As I've flown to TLV on 23 return trips on more than one carrier, I was just posting my observations.

I've also had some interesting conversations recently with SEA-based pax who were on my flights to NRT, and they certainly have direct options available.

No idea but this is a fair point.

However, there are far more tech companies in and around Stockholm than there are in Copenhagen or Malmö.

Reality is, they are not doing it, so I will drop it. It just seems to me that AC is doing a "me too" routing to CPH that isn't compelling on an O&D or connecting hub basis (CPH is a better hub but not much better) ... and are missing an interesting chance to pick up a lot of ARN traffic out of the U.S., on the model Ben L laid out above

"Fly North American" Star Alliance passengers in the US and Canada already have the UA EWR-ARN flight, so an AC flight to ARN would have to compete against that.
There's probably a market for ARN flights in the summer (maybe more for Swedes going to Canada than vice versa), but probably not daily. For winter flights, it makes more sense to increase the CPH frequency than having a few flights to CPH and a few flights to ARN.

While I can't speak to CPH vs ARN in particular, I will say that we have a Network Planning team dedicated to doing just this (in fact, this is what ac-YUL does) - evaluating new routes, capacity optimisation, etc. I can tell you that if we saw an opportunity in ARN we would pursue it.

Agree with your second point.

Re the EWR-ARN UA flight, that is a 9 hour flight on a 757, I have done it in coach twice, I'd sooner saw my arm off with a penknife than do that one again. The better option is an SK A340 that goes out of ORD 3-4 times a week.

Going into SAS was a bad decision for the Swedes 65 years ago, and they are still paying for it. There are other weird anomalies in Europe that are also a function of policy decisions made decades ago (ie the lack of long-haul service to Hamburg)

I would enjoy getting more visibility on network planning somehow (I get why this has to be kept mostly confidential). If I were 21 years old again, I would try to get into this - these mass optimization analyses are fascinating.