Rad456

YEG-LAS direct flights replaced with Swoop Direct flights after October long weekend. Screws with my vacation trip!

Robbing from mainline flights to service your ULCC flights is a bad move Westjet!!

Altaflyer

Fiordland

You do have a choice, you could connect in Saskatoon, Regina or Winnipeg, Alternatively there is Vancouver, Toronto.

YXUFlyboy

Unfortunately, all your direct service is via WS.... so unfortunately that does mean you have to connect now. But you as Fiordland points out, you got options

YEG is Flair's hub. WS is trying to defend market share in YEG. Meanwhile, F9 is already establishing in YYC and flies to DEN and soon LAS.

nave888

Don't forget - Rouge is starting the route soon too, so it only makes sense that WJ would try and keep their turf!

aerobod

YEG will continue to struggle in having a variety of direct flights, especially transborder, with the current passenger volumes. Total passenger volume is less than half of YYC and transborder is less than one third of YYC. Total transborder passengers hovers around one million per year for all destinations, WestJet has around one million passengers just for Las Vegas each year. With Swoop being needed to compete with Flair out of Edmonton, YEG-LAS is unlikely to be profitable using mainline at a volume needed to fill a -700 or -800 several times a week, let alone daily.

juddstreet

And here it is, exactly what we've been warning & frustrated about in other threads. A mainline WJ route gets Swooped, and WJ frequent fliers are the losers.

The solution is really simple: Allow, at a minimum, status earn on the Swoop route for both WJ and DL fliers. Without that, it's the exact same as WJ canceling the route entirely.

nave888

Agreed - If Swoop is supposed to compete with Rouge, do what Rouge does and keep status benefits/earning in line with mainline.

aerobod

Swoop is designed to compete with ULCCs, Rouge isn't a ULCC, it is closest to an LCC. If you look at CASM to position an airline based on the cost of it's service, which should reflect the depth of service offering, perks, partner integration and process complexity (low offerings of these is a ULCC, high is a Business class offering), then the values for CASM (ex-fuel, Canadian $) are something like this in Canada when looking at 1000 mile stage lengths:

<$0.08 - ULCC (Swoop, Flair, Jetlines)
$0.08 - $0.11 - LCC (WestJet, Rouge, AT, Sunwing)
$0.11 - $0.15 - Legacy Economy class (AC mainline)
>$0.15 - Legacy Business class (AC Business class, future WestJet Premium)

Swoop is aiming for $0.07, WestJet is at $0.10 overall and Rouge is somewhere around $0.095. I think Flair is likely to be about $0.09 at the moment due to their fleet limitations and some operations out of Toronto and Calgary.

For Swoop to hit a CASM target of $0.07 ex-fuel, they won't be able to provide benefits, due to the added process complexity and book liability (typically 5% of revenue where the benefit is earned). With WestJet moving more to a network/legacy model for mainline, hub operations become the norm with little point-to-point flying, at this point in time YVR, YYC and YYZ are the only operations large enough to be hubs, all other destinations will be spokes. Swoop will only hit cost targets with pure point-to-point operations with no connectivity at all (Ryanair model), any Swoop connection is at the traveler's own risk with separately purchased tickets, even if Swoop was responsible for any delay.

Troubler

YXUFlyboy

YXX is a secondary airport (reliever for YVR) and is also attracting other ULCCs, like Flair. Same as YEG, it has to be Swooped to remain competitive.

YXUFlyboy

WS's FF program is good for the leisure traveller (easy to earn, easy to understand) but it just plain sucks as a FF program for real frequent fliers. Unless you're flying all WS metal, what's the point? If they don't fix it we'll be better off chasing DL status.

YXUFlyboy

It's also worth noting - despite the frustration, WS still has a lot of options from YEG and isn't forcing you through YYC, YVR or YYZ for quite a few destinations. Although YXX and LAS are lost, you can still get mainline to PHX (I kind of wish they'd Swoop YYC-AZA). But I get the hub envy!

tcook052

Me neither and given the debacle of a new terminal at YYC in no rush to either. Sad to see this route Swooped.

Heffeh41

Forced to connect in another Canadian city? People of Ottawa feel your pain.