adamj023

AA is in a totally different financial situation now than it was last year. They will have to pull routes and consolidate with larger jets to even have a chance at turning profitable along with union concessions and a whole host of options including selling parts of their markets to other carriers when necessary.

AA's future is uncertain now but WestJet and Air Canada seem to have great chances of success here.

AA's past does not have anything to do with its future. Anyone knows that company financials are a snapshot in time based on conditions that existed during those time periods.

Right now oil is at close to $100 a barrel. AA is also losing money as of its last quarter and is facing competition against other profitable carriers in the routes it serves.

WestJet management teams knew exactly what they were doing with the slot purchase now which I believe was a very good one which will last a long time to come.

I can't comment on what happened with WestJet in the past but the market is different than previously. I would not be surprised to see very close to 90% passenger loads on these flights.

Westjet and Air Canada will both do well. AA less so if it stays in but its questionable as to the future.

Canada is fortunate to have WestJet and Air Canada both quality carriers just like I am fortunate to have quality carriers here in the USA.

AA less so till they get their act together and get profitable.

Remember, airlines got stuck with the smaller jets which they bought when fuel prices were high. They would love to get rid of them but the market values on those correlated to higher fuel price is very low. Therefore they simply got stuck with the older jets and didn't have funding necessary.

WestJet came into the auction with cash on hand to get the slots as well as be able to utilize its fleet @ LGA with 737's already on hand.

Air Canada is likely going to have to pull those Embraer or use more Airbus to stay competitive.

The market is dynamic and ever changing based on new competition to the marketplace.

One carrier steps up with the bigger jets and you are like oh, noone else is doing it. But someone else is and the reasons are well known as to why WestJet is. In fact if I had to guess the A320 derivatives were probably newcomers to the route as well.

For those who conduct business in Canada as world economies are global, they likely will be popping in on WestJet and Air Canada and utilization should be pretty high I would imagine but its unclear who will win out, WestJet or Air Canada as to higher passenger loads.

Im done here, but in response to this thread: I think its great Westjet is now a carrier at LGA again which makes better utilizaton of LGA as a total whole.

Short hair Francis

Don't you think I don't know AA is losing their pants, I'm EXP.

At the same time, why are you celebrating the success of AC here?
They have equally as much labor issues as AA, severe defined benefit pensions funding problems

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/...ke-threat.html

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/stor...bitration.html

http://www.cbc.ca/news/yourcommunity...-affected.html

Completely ignoring AC's labor issue while presentating AA?

Are they really that disliked
http://www.embraer.com/en-US/Conheca...ages/Home.aspx

Embraer still shows a current backlog of 248 planes, if airlines wanted to get rid of planes, they certainly don't need to go to the maker for it if a second-hand market exists.



Well WS is similar to WN that uses a one fleet strategy.
They would be foolish to start a second fleet for a small market segment

As to arguing why no one else is running 320/737s,

You're arguing that people would flock to WS
1) The market for business traveller is for frequent reliable flights
8 slots will not do it unless they use all of the 8 slots for one destination
However, flooding 8x 150 seater into one route will easily kill the revenue for anyone.
Mutual Guarantee Destruction


Just because WS comes in doesn't mean those market suddenly grow from supporting 2000 passengers to 4000.
Your stratifiying that WS is like the SQ 380s in Suites and everyone heart is going to fall for it.
Those AC E75/E90 were all 320 from the capacity pulldown of 2009-2011.
You reduce the amount of seats to push out the cheaper seats and increase revenue and most airlines have done this lately. AA, UA, DL, AC...

I'm not saying WS can't succeed in LGA, but there are some key issue that can easily derail their business plan.

And WS can easily go back to 2006 when they withdrew from LGA

Hypnotize

How is nobody catching onto the Delta/WestJet connection here?

Trust me - it's going to be big. ^

neuron

The codeshares with DL will be part of WS' success here given DL's LGA strength. S-H-F has already indicated that the time of the landing spots, and I think this will be crucial to any codeshares (that and where WS will operate out of, as it is a pain to go from the DL terminal to the Central terminal).

Short hair Francis

I had to search it and you are right, WS and DL does have their codeshare deal, just waiting for DOT approval for the time being.

http://airlineroute.net/2011/11/02/dlws-codeshare/

I always remember WS only having codeshares with AA and CX.
Only thought DL was interline only


That will make it interesting now that I'm relooked at it, WS would have alot bigger reach then what they previously had.

Its like we're seeing the 2nd raising of Alaska Airlines in Westjet

adamj023

I just popped in to say I haven't forgot about the interline agreement nor the fact that I felt they would get a codeshare as well. People kept saying it was just an interline agreement but I never corrected them.

Air Canada is different than AA even with the labor issues since it went thru bankruptcy already. But we will see what happens there.

Air Canada is part of Star Alliance. WestJet will be codeshared with Delta but has other codesharing agreements with other airlines as well. The code share agreement doesn't look like it make it part of SkyMiles however.

On the media you see a lot of mention of Canada recently. There are loads of Canadians and they surely like to fly. So Westjet with all that is going on is good for the Canada route.

sokolov

I hope WestJet will take up LGA-YHZ. YHZ has lost some important US-connections recently - not important as point-to-point, but as feeders for hubs, including Delta. IIRC, Delta has giving up YHZ at least in winter.

So there could well be a business case for a 737 connection from YHZ to LGA - not only point-to-point, but factoring in the Delta-Codeshare-phantasy.

I don't have scientific data, but I think the price level in YHZ is generally higher than in YYZ/YTZ ot YUL, no matter where you go (except to St. John's, Newfoundland, maybe).

HangTen

YYCguy

Had to laugh when I read this: "Further, JetBlue’s subsidiary, WestJet Airlines Ltd. (Toronto:WJA.TO - News) also received eight other flight slots auctioned at LaGuardia airport." in this article: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/JetBlu...84963.html?x=0

Sounds like somebody needs to check his/her facts...subsidiary indeed!

HangTen

Ha ha! Some of the Westjet guys helped Jetblue get off the ground!

DanJ

None of those orders are the ERJ series though. The E170/190's are larger aircraft that are more fuel efficient and offer vastly superior cabin comfort compared to the little regional jets.

YYCguy

Sure, helping is one thing, but being considered a part of the company is totally different. The author of the article obviously doesn't know the difference between the two.

adamj023

DL to JFK
3 x 50-seat CRJ

Is going to be phased out. Delta has committed to remove smaller planes from usage. Delta customers will be on WestJet. Doesn't look like this one will remain at all. Either Delta will put a larger plane on the route or perhaps let WestJet run this flight and codeshare with them? I doubt they will just give up the route rather than transferring it elsewhere. The new relationship with Westjet makes it seem like WestJet will be running the show on this route for Delta customers. However from my perspective I would rather be on WestJet than a CRJ on DL.

Not that I fly to Canada myself but in the future Airbus A320 derivatives and 737 next gen planes are likely going to be the main ones used on more of these routes going forward. Some of the larger Embraers and others will still be used on the lesser popular routes.

Seems like there will be consolidation to the more experienced pilots on the market, since regional airlines tend to have less experienced pilots with less air time than large jet pilots overall. A lot of these pilots will probably get laid off unless they retrain on the larger jets, but there will likely be a smaller pool of total routes due to cutbacks lately.

A lot of smaller routes have been cut already for the smaller planes with more to come. And larger airlines are consolidating and using larger jets when possible.

neuron

I would caution you overanalyzing WS's slots at LGA.

First, the time of the slots will play a big factor. Remember, even though WS gets slots, they have a designated window to fly. If its not close to one of the desirable times, then DL may opt to use CR7/9s or ER70/5 when the CRJs or ERJs are retired. At present, DL has a morning flight (8ish) and 2 afternoon/evening flights (5ish, 8ish) from LGA-YYZ. These are pretty good slots, so WS would have to have desirable ones to replace them. DL will not be giving up any slots considering what it took to turn LGA into a DL fort.

Second, Pinnacle, which operates as Delta Connection has a 10 yr contract with DL and has some of their CR7s, so they may get first dibs over WS.

Third, I already mentioned that if WS operates out of the Central terminal, connections will not be so easy. Personally, if I had to exit the terminal and redo security, I would have to consider it a negative

I think this will all come down to how frequent (and what times) WS will run their flights, and to which cities -- from LGA, AC flies to YUL, YOW and YYZ. Is WS going to go up against them, or find a niche while working with a potential codeshare. I suspect that if WS has to negotiate with DL or US, these airlines will prob do their best to maintain their own corporate interests, and if that means codeshares, so be it!

OVerall, as a consumer, I see this as a plus (similar to PD's endless sales which trigger EWR-YYZ sales on AC), as long as WS can continue to operate from LGA and not bail like they did before.

StuMcIlwain

Delta's flights into JFK feed international routes. (So do AA's flights.) WS's flights into LGA are useless for that. The DL YYZ-JFK route may be phased out (or it may not), but it won't be replaced by WS.

DL has a large presence in LGA, but it is mostly for NYC traffic. Few people change planes there due to frequent flight delays. There are plenty of better hubs to use if you need to make a connection, and many other DL flights from YYZ to choose from if you wish to stay on that airline. I suspect most people on the WS flights will be flying to NYC.

There's a good reason why most Canada/US transborder flights are operated with smaller aircraft -- people want frequent non-stop flights. I struggle to see how WS will fill up eight 737s per day as a new entrant in the NYC market, especially with Porter trying to gain market share. However, when WS pulled out of LGA a few years ago, they did say they needed more slots to attract the business market, and WS executives have demonstrated that they do know how to run an airline, so perhaps they will succeed. It should make for some good fares in the short term.

Flights from anywhere other than YYZ have no chance of working.