What an expensive, time consuming mess. Brand new Max 8's coming off Boeing line needing to be reconfigured.

Will they are least use the new 174 LOPA to reconfig the all economy 737s and get those going with Cuba out of the picture?

As Fisch said, there is no certified new 174 seat LOPA at the moment, Transport Canada will take a while to certify it, typically a couple of months after the relevant documentation is prepared and sent to them.

So, basically everything is halted and they can't take advantage now of the underutilized equipment.

I hope they at least get some of them painted.

I got another schedule change notification from Delta re. WS-operated flights this summer (both intra-Canada and Canada-US), a couple of weeks after similar notifications with other schedule changes for the same flights. Is it common for Westjet changing their mind twice within the month?

Yes, there have been a few waves of changes lately.
In my case, each booking got progressively worse.

Westjet is ceasing service to both Medicine Hat (YXH) and Lethbridge (YQL) June 24th. Tons of taxpayer dollars spent at YQL to keep WestJet in town, when the code share ended with CMA that was the beginning of the end.

It was destined to fail as soon as WS went down to only one single flight a day. With such a short distance, its only purpose was as a feeder into WestJet's network (not serving O&D traffic). A single daily flight would never work well feeding into a network, as connections would rarely be effective or convenient -- meaning that driving was likely always a better option for people. CMA operating as WS Link had the right aircraft size and better frequencies -- but was painfully unreliable.

This is really too bad - but not surprising. Looks like most of the former Westjet Link flights are gone - Dawson Creek and Lloydminster came and went even faster.

I remember when these cities had AC flights (3x daily BEH and then DH1 I believe), but lobbied hard for Westjet. Westjet came, but it was just as AC was getting rid of its smallest props, so as Westjet came, AC left. Now both are left with no service at all. If only they had kept the Link planes with a few daily frequencies, I'm sure these would have been sustainable. Just sad to see two cities that have had consistent service for decades lose all service.

Maybe AC will swoop in with DH4s to YVR? With a big enough subsidy, maybe that's the answer? Look at how they bumped up their YVR-YXE/YQR capacity when they exited the YYC-YXE/YQR market...

Do you mean when WS had the CPA with Pacific Coastal where they had a handful of Saab 340s operated as WestJet Link? If so, yes, I'd agree. It's a service that's marginally useful for connections, but when there's only one flight a day, it can mean a very long wait in one or both directions. And very little appeal to someone going for the day. A cousin of my mother's used to occasionally take AC to come from YXH to YYC for the day. He was very disappointed when AC pulled out - leaving at 05:30 and coming back at midnight or whatever is much less appealing than just driving.

I didn't realize they had operated to YDQ in the end. It was first announced before COVID and for some reason I thought it had never come to pass. I'm disappointed I never got it on my map. I did get YLL though.

Can't say both AC and WS didn't try, but the demand clearly wasn't there.

With enough of a subsidy, an airline will do anything. But why would local governments throw a bunch of money at this? It's ~2.25 hours to drive from YQL to YYC and ~3 hours from YXH. YVR would be a huge backtrack for going almost anywhere else in Canada and the US. If it couldn't work from YYC with relatively low trip cost on the Saabs, and it didn't work with higher trip cost but lower CASM on the DH4, it will be even worse going all the way to YVR.

Id argue the point that they tried.. Flights often cancelled, often delayed, many last minute. The CPA service wasn't actually too bad, the unfortunate part there was the lack of crew in Calgary to service an Airplane that required an GPU. Often (at least IME) they only had one GPU crew that literally started at one end and went down to the other starting aircraft. The "schedule" often didn't mean anything, if you were at the other end of the line you would be delayed. And during IRROPS you were pretty much screwed.
The unfortunate part of this was the 2.6 Million that was sunk into YQL back in 2021 by the city (Think it was over $20 million with Federal/Provincial funding), which was supposed to bring increased WestJet frequency/locations. Also Flair pulling a bait/switch back in 2022 really hurt the market.
Not that I am of that demographic yet, I worked in an industry previously that serviced that demographic, there is a huge demand to AZ (Whether it be Tucson or one of Phoenix Airports), and there still is. Lots of folks in this are still drive to GTF to fly on Allegiant to Mesa, or up to Calgary to fly to Snowbird locations. For a very short time in between jobs while I was upgrading education for the new job I drove UBER, in October/November/January I had a little Ford Focus that at 110Km/h got like 45mpg, Id be back and forth at least 3-4 times a week driving Snowbirds to Calgary to return back to their homes in AZ, UBER paid nothing but the tips often paid for more then Gas on the round trip. There were a few shuttle services here in town that used to do the run to GTF until the border/insurance dynamic made it uneconomical.
Long\short its unfortunate that we are centralizing air travel and making it less accessible. Our Government Sanctioned Duopoly isn't going anywhere, maybe Central Mountain Air hooks onto a notion that it may be worth using Dash 8-400's again into the region on their own, they seem to be expanding, one can only hope. It doesn't pain me that WestJet left given its long documented struggles in Customer Service/Experience but the airport is literally shut the doors with them gone.

From the Mexican rumour mill.

https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/vanc...-route-yvr-tij
A recent announcement by the Government of Baja California has sparked speculation that a brand-new direct, non-stop flight route reaching the major tourist hub of Tijuana could be coming to Vancouver International Airport (YVR).

Earlier this month, officials with the Mexican state proclaimed a �letter of intent� had been signed with WestJet for a non-stop, direct flight between YVR and Tijuana International Airport (TIJ).

Apologies but dislike this phrase. Isn't 'non-stop' sufficiently self-explanatory?

My understanding is that in airline lexicon "direct" means you get to your destination without changing flight number, but there may be stop(s), or rarely, a change in aircraft. "Non-stop" means there are no scheduled stops to your destination. Most of the time there won't be an unscheduled stop either.

"non-stop" is sufficient,
"direct, non-stop" combined is redundant,
"direct" on its own can be misleading and generally serves no purpose as it does not mean what many non-aviation people think it does (i.e. non-stop). I've been on direct flights with stops that include:
- continuing passengers stay on the plane at the intermediate stop,
- continuing passengers deboard/board the same plane at the intermediate stop,
- continuing passengers change planes at the intermediate stop.