YYT82

I'm disappointed in AC's response to this crisis. WS, 5T (Canadian North), and 7F (First Air) were (and still are) the ones running extra flights to and from oil sands aerodromes getting supplies in and people out. AC has the largest fleet in Canada but I did not see one AC aircraft in the area helping out. Evacuating 80,000+ people by air in a short amount of time is already challenging enough, and having only limited B737s running the operation made it tougher. Sure, the aerodrome might only be designed for landing these aircrafts, but surely making a few RJs available could only help.

Does revenue management have something to do with this, too?

Yes, Canadian North planes have been doing the runs on extremely short turnarounds in YEG and YYC.

tcook052

Where is this estimate coming from? I've been following the news closely and have heard about all the air evacuations going on by a number of airlines but don't believe the entire city's population, which is more like 60K BTW, has been airlifted out.

ProudEdmontonian

News conference just finished.

Plans to evacuate approximately 8,000 people north of Fort McMurray are starting with airlift being the first phase until such time as it is safe to re-open the highway at which time mobile gas stations will be put in place.

The bulk of evacuees are to be moved to Edmonton where the relief and social services agencies are best equipped to help out is the primary reason. There is adequate food and water in the camps in the north.

Premiere Elite - YEG

5T (Canadian North) is doing the max along with many more airlines. WS and AC just get the media attention.

iMedic

I'd wager 80% of people have no idea that airlines like Canadian North, First Air, Bearskin, etc even exist.

YYT82

The number of residents in YMM may not include transient workers. I remember reading news that 30,000 or so drove themselves south. There are a large number of Oilsands operations north of YMM that are now cut off by roads and air is the only way out. I'll admit 80,000 left up there is a high estimate, but these Oilsands operations have thousands of workers on one site at any given point in time, and there are several sites up there. One needs to be involved in the situation to see how bad it is. 5T got us out late last night and they were still working round the clock when we landed.

ProudEdmontonian

Driving in from the southside to downtown Edmonton this morning on Gateway Blvd. and noticed that every single hotel/motel parking lot was full on the way in. Lots of people outside the Sawridge smoking.

upgradesecret

I just spent 5 hours out at YEG.
Air Canada is doing their bit by adding thousands of seats out of there and filling everyone of them.
Most of those 80,000 quoted would have evacuated by car, truck and bus and they are being accommodated by the airlines out of YEG. Air Canada could not send in their big widebodies because there is no one there to onload them even if the equipment was there to do so. YEG is even hard pressed. There was an A320 flight upguaged to an A330, which YEG has never seen before. They managed the 77W last night and filled it.

ProudEdmontonian

These are presumably people leaving YEG for central and eastern Canada.

upgradesecret

Canadian North and First Air have the aircraft that can operate out of the oil site strips.
Those airfields would not accommodate a 777 nor does anyone up there have the equipment to handle the large widebodies.

YYT82

If you read my first post in this thread, you can see I noted B737 were designed to land in these aerodromes (heck, the B737 were even designed to land on gravel landing strips with proper guards in place). However, the runways are long enough for RJs and I have definitely seen RJs on one aerodrome before. As I said, anything helps.

RCyyz

1) Fantastic that extra help is on the way!
2) Must be a painfully long wait for everyone waiting for the birds to get from YQB to YMM.
3) There's a comment on CBC that using these airdrops are "like spitting on a campfire". After seeing some of the videos posted on CBC, YouTube etc I'd have to agree. It's pretty bad out there! Still, it's absolutely necessary to try and I'm impressed, once again, that the first responders are out there in the face of the fire while everyone else is going the other way.

upgradesecret

A lot of them yes, but the hardest destination to find a seat is YYC even though Jazz seems to be running everything with Q400's.
A lot of the workers commute to YVR and YLW also.

tcook052

Respectfully, I think it is but the speed of events makes getting the bigger picture hard.

Good to hear and kudos to those airlines helping others. ^

fairviewroad

Wow, that's an astonishing eff-up. It's easy to Monday morning quarterback, and obviously this was a fast-moving story, but still. Yeesh.

Of course, the internet pitchfork-bearers are accusing her of making fun of the fire...when it's clear that she was simply clueless.