tcook052

From today's AC Flash:

Between December 17 and April 2, Air Canada reintroduces daily nonstop service between Calgary and Phoenix with everyday, low one-way TANGO fares starting as low as $198.00 CAD, offering same-day connections to Edmonton, Lethbridge, Medicine Hat, Regina and Saskatoon.

YYC-PHX AC 586 0830 1130 A319
PHX-YYC AC 587 1220 1531 A319

Conditions apply. Air Canada also offers YYZ-PHX service and golf equipment is carried free of charge when its part of the free baggage allowance.

shuuy

Might be tight for a 08h30 departure depending on queues when first flights arrive at:

Regina (7h30)
Saskatoon (10h50)
Edmonton (8h00)

(I don't know about the sked in December, but this was what calgaryairport.com had)...

ProudEdmontonian

Yawn. HP non-stop ex-YEG for me all year round so connecting in YYC is for fools who still fly AC.

P.S. Golf equipment is always free on HP - just don't exceed 50 lbs.

The Winger

Yawn is right, your posts are extremely tiring.

Have fun riding on the uncomfortable CRJ's, with the worst service of any airline on the planet. I happily fly through DEN when nonstop service isn't available on AC throughout the year to avoid this crappy airline.

ProudEdmontonian

If I were so unfortunate as to have to live in YYC, I'd probably take this flight because I patronize non-stop carriers. Luckily my parents moved back to YEG with me in 1966 and I've lived here (except for 2 years in YOW and 3 in YYZ) ever since.

As to DEN, YEG is UAX CRJ service only so I might as well "suffer" non-stop.

I invite you to come up and fly from here via YYC trans-border with baggage in the morning. Then you can voice an opinion on this "new" route when you connect. Then again, it might not be as bad as it was since AC eliminated the early morningYYC-LAX non-stop....

cattle

I was forced to fly HP to PHX back in July and sat beside a weekly commuter on that flight. He said that our outbound delay from YYC-PHX was normal because the PHX-YYC flight is always so late into YYC that the crew can't work at the departure time because they are usually 30 min to 45min behind their mandatory overnight breaks (sorry don't know the technical term) and it had been this way almost every week for months. He knew that his chances of a Monday morning on time departure where very slim but more frustrating was that he never knew for sure when he was going to get home on Fridays. He only took it because it was a direct flight. I am going to guess that guy is either on WS now or will take AC since they aren't RJ's either. Of note, he said that he would get comp u/g's on YYC-PHX if the a/c happened to be one of the RJ's with a J cabin but it wasn't most of the time according to him.

He said his status (AC elite equivalent) wasn't worth much as he was only flying RJ's with HP.

The Winger

I actually just returned from YEG (Sherwood Park and Nisku actually) this afternoon. I spend alot of time between YYC, YEG and Fort Mac airports.

Having given HP a few chances this year to PHX and LAS, I will gladly connect elsewhere to avoid them. In May I flew with my Family to PHX on AC/UA and had a buddy fly down with his family to stay with us. He flew HP because it was a few bucks cheaper and nonstop. He couldn't understand why I would fly through DEN. When he arrived he said he had wished he had taken my advice.

yycguy2

Who said there would be any room for folks connecting from YEG?
With $50 oil, $6-$7 Nat Gas prices and all those execs from IOL moving out to YYC I can see a lot of people who live in YYC having the spare cash to keep their golf handicap low this winter. The higher CDN$ won't hurt either.

All those oilfield service/drilling companies based out of Nisku and Leduc will be too busy punching holes in the ground to let their people take vacations until the permafrost thaws and by that time of the year they'll have more options than just PHX for destinations with great golfing weather.

FlyerAl

I can't speak for the YYC or YEG flights, but I've flown HP many times on their YYZ-PHX, YYZ-LAS, and YYZ-CMH (when it existed) flights and they were always on-time with excellent service. Not to mention you can actually find award seats available on these flights! My only complaint is that CO handles their flights at YYZ and they have awful agents working there.

PointWeasel

I have dealt with HP over the phone numerous times this week alone as my aunt from YYF will be took them non-stop GEG-PHX yesterday. I enquired about award seats and only the 5:45 am CRJ flight was available (not too bad but waaay too early, even for her) the 2 other 737 non-stops were nearly oversold. With no choice but a revenue ticket, we were about to pay $400 USD when I recalled the Seniors Fare program that HP offers for 1 day advance purchase in many NA markets. I tried again online using a senior booking this time and the fare dropped to $278 USD - booked it and got seats and it was all finished in minutes. Until...

The email itinerary arrives and the seats are totally different from what was selected so I called the IT Desk (note: AC still refuses to offer an equivalent to this dedicated area) and the agent apologized for the error and got the seats back for us. I asked about the upgrade program and she said to try at the 24 hour window. I checked the am before her flight and the feature offered a confirmed upgrade for $100 USD which I purchased for her (my favourite aunt). The odd thing was the seat map. I showed full even though I just bought an upgrade. I called the IT Desk and the agent said np, I have an aisle seat available. We grabbed the seat and the flight arrived in PHX 15 mins early.

I myself have only flown HP once on SFO-LAS many years ago and while they were not my favourite carrier, they do serve a market that obviously exists. Recent route additions like FCA-PHX, YEG-LAX, YVR-LAX are new territory for them and if they make a go of it where others couldn't them that is good for them and the consumer. Their website needs some fine tuning though since you can't change your seats unless you call an agent (a la AC) which is a feature I have come to love from AS/QX.

In addition, in my aunt's case, YYF-PHX doesn't exist yet , nor does YLW-PHX - so the other alternatives are AC YYF-YYC/YVR then HP YYC/YVR-PHX which costs A LOT when compared to the GEG-PHX non-stop. Even when the AC non-stop arrives in December the YYF-YYC route only offers a nightly stay in YYC as the flight misconnects.

qatar

America West is putting a 737-300 on the 7AM Calgary flight as of 01 Nov. The return evening flight to Calgary is aslo an 737-300.

cattle

Interesting. I wonder if this is because of loads or the competition having larger a/c?

superdawg

HP has typically put the 737 or A319 on that route in winter so my guess would be loads and not the competition. It's just like AS bringing back the direct YYC-LAX flight for the winter season, during summer the lower demand has it route through SEA.

tcook052

Hey Dawg, do you mean Why Why See-LAX?

WR Cage

The commuter would not be flying on WS, their service is only 3 times per week on Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday. YYC outbound at 11am and PHX outbound at 14:50.

HP service is double daily with the Morning YYC departure a 733 and ther afternoon departure a CRJ705.