YOWCDNFF

Doesn't this "hub designation" go back to the Canadian Airlines days. My memory may be playing trick on me but YYC was a CP hub and at the time of the merger, AC was focusing more on YEG (not necessarily as a HUB). Post-merger, YYC was retained as a "hub".

Sean Peever

YWG actually does qualify as a focus city.

Focus city's are:
YWG
YEG
YOW
YHZ



While they never said this - I assume you are correct.

Wpgjetse

YYC started out as PWA hub. They even had their own terminal.

Stranger

Then PWA made the mistake of buying Canadian Pacific. Rest is history, and we have no real competition left.

Wpgjetse

Add Wardair to their mistake. I think PWA buying Wardair was a way for Alta government to pay off the friend Max.

Stranger

There was a sequence of mistakes. On top of each other. But PWA absorbing the much larger Canadian Pacific was the one that started it all.

Wpgjetse

Thank the government for that. They wanted a larger western based airline.

ProudEdmontonian

The biggest mistake the Edmonton Socred-connected business community ever made was to sit by and watch Lougheed use government money to buy PWA and move its head office to Calgary. By the time they figured out that the Socreds were dead, it was too late.

ridefar

For those that care, SFO is on that list too. OGG too (seasonally).

I would love to see ORD added too, but I assume with the current AC/UA agreement that is highly unlikely.

MSP should be on there as well. Given the only competition on that route is DL, I can't really explain that, unless MSP is not actually the final destination for very many people on that flight (currently the planes are 100% every weekday).

Adam Smith

I doubt there's much O/D traffic to MSP. But coming from YYC, it makes a decent connection point to many places in the eastern US. With pre-clearing CBP in YYC rather than at YYZ/YUL, it can make for a good itinerary overall.

My assumption is that DL is filling its planes mainly with that connecting traffic.

Shareholder

AC uses YYC as a prairies regional hub, feeding Jazz/Regional flights for connection to mainline. Longer haul services vary with market conditions. There has been service to NRT and would likely have been more such flights if the market could sustain such service, but with the collapse of the oil industry Alberta is no longer the strong market it once was particularly for business travel. AC provides service on this basis, so yes, YYC is not a hub like YVR, YYZ or YUL, but it is a relief focus in the west.

For WS, it is the home base, so makes sense it will have more flights from/to this airport. (It was also a major CP hub after the PWA merger.) But with population in the province split between north and south, and the need to provide some nonstop services from YEG, YYC can't hope to have the critical mass to be a major hub for AC, and as it has established itself in YVR and YYZ, even WS has shifted focus to those two major hubs. Bottom line, not enough population to sustain a major hub,

Heffeh41

In my opinion, if there is a regularly scheduled ACr flight, I consider it a hub.

YXUFlyboy

YYC is a hub because AC says it's a hub. But the point of the post is, it's not just a slightly smaller hub that YVR, YUL and YYZ. It's quite a lot smaller. Hence "fake". But AC can, I suppose, call any airport a hub, just like WS doesn't call YVR one (but it kinda is).

Yes, people can connect to YXE and YQR through YYC, but they can also do that at all the other hubs and YWG so people are not generally going to do this unless they are being fed into YYC from a small airport in AB or from YYT. No one transits YYC from the east; they'll go through YYZ.

All three major AC hubs have lounges in domestic, international and trans-border. Even YQR has a domestic lounge.

YYC-LHR? So does YHZ, it's not a hub. It also has YHZ-BOS.
YYC-LAS is Rogue - WS is likely a better choice.
YYC-SEA is seasonal and Alaska now offers mainline service year round.
YYC-IAH is a CR7 and both UA and WS offer more comfortable options.
YYC-PHX is Rogue - WS is likely a better choice.
YYC-SFO - More comfy options offered by UA.
YYC-EWR is definitely nice (as is YYC-LAX) and seems like the better trans-border routes. Most of the western US is better covered by UA.

YYC-FRA and YYC-NRT are the premium international routes on AC metal. I'm hoping OGG gets added as a 787 route soon.

suranyi

It's not true that no one transits YYC from the east. A few years ago I flew the route YOW-YYC-SFO. It was a last minute personal trip, and the more direct routings were much more expensive.

eigenvector

I'm not sure what the number of lounges in an airport has to do with anything. AC has 8 continental US destinations from YYC, compared to 9 for YVR. The fact that other airlines serve some of these city pairs has little to do with whether they contribute to AC activity at YYC. Ditto for Rouge. Rouge is AC.

If I live in Western Canada but not Vancouver or Calgary, I am just as likely to route via YYC on the way to the US as YVR. That role as a connecting point is what makes it a hub. As for "no one transits YYC from the East", I used to transit YYC all the time when I lived in - wait for it - Toronto. One stop via YYC was often much cheaper than nonstop from YYZ, or fit better with my schedule. Yes you can fly from Toronto to Kelowna or Victoria nonstop, but so what? Much of the time, unless you have a totally unconstrained schedule, it'll be more convenient to transit YYC due to the far better frequencies on YYZ<>YYC and YYC<>YLW/YYJ compared to the nonstop. That is the function of a hub.

To be a hub, an airport need only be somewhere you could transit to many destinations, not the ONLY place you can transit. It must also be designated as an allowable transit point without causing a fare break. If we apply your definition of excluding any destination served from another hub or another airline, is YUL a hub? Is YVR even a hub? I can just as easily fly to all of AC's TPAC destinations from YVR on a foreign carrier in more comfort. Do HKG/TYO/ICN/PEK/PVG therefore not count toward YVR's hub status?

YYC is AC's 4th largest operation, and has a significant role connecting domestic and transborder traffic, therefore the airline has officially designated it as a hub. Who else flies to YYC has no bearing in the matter.