cirrusdragoon

Perhaps those other cities , are where tourists go to primarily in Canada , has nothing to do with AC or WS driving foreign carriers out. As a Canadian one should be supporting the notion supporting Canadian jobs , not lining the bursaries of foreign companies.

Adam Smith

As a Canadian, I'm more interested in the ability of Canadian consumers to purchase airfare on reasonable terms than in a handful of jobs. To the extent that WS drives competitors like KL out of YYC, it's mostly WS's shareholders that will accrue the benefits of the less competitive market anyway.

cirrusdragoon

Where is your concrete evidence that it is WS fault for foreign carriers not to choose YYC as a destination or to pull out? It is ludicrous to assume such Have you considered it a possibility that YYC is not a sought after world class destination?

I will agree to disagree with you once again.

Anyways this has drifted way off topic. Congrats to Westjet on their new AMS destination , the naysayers were there when you started years ago and they will always be there , some perhaps from direct competitors. Go get the world Westjet!

YYCguy

Re: Westjet’s “shareholders”: Onex bought Westjet and took it private, so there are no more Westjet shareholders.

newfbc

I believe ONEX is a public company with shareholders?

Ron.

YXUFlyboy

BA may have pulled out regardless, but I'm sure having LGW wasn't helping. It's simple supply and demand economics though - you have too many seats for sale your supply is greater than the demand and the price drops. Eventually someone says enough and pulls out.

YXUFlyboy

What do I care about supporting Canadian jobs? Foreign carriers have Canadian jobs at the airports they serve too. I don't make consumer decisions based on Canadian jobs, perhaps that's your benchmark, in which case, this is a win for you. I care about consumer choice to the most destinations possible and, where possible, service on carriers to interesting international destinations and hubs that are not served by WestJet, which has a very inaccessible business class product requiring a cash outlay I don't need to provide for most other carriers. So, you force me out of YYC and through YVR or a US Gateway.

Adam Smith

We're not talking about foreign carriers in the abstract. No one here is whining that EK doesn't fly 380s to YYC. @YXUFlyboy made a specific point about the route that's the subject of this thread, and it's a valid concern as to whether WS serving the route might drive away KL.

KL had found YYC to be worth serving for quite a few years, including through most of the pandemic. If it were to suddenly pull out shortly after WS launched the same route, it would be highly likely that the WS service is what caused KL to leave, not anything inherent about YYC.

Every corporation has at least one shareholder. If you're being incredibly pedantic and want to point out that Kestrel Bidco is the only shareholder of WestJet following the Onex deal (as far as we know), in a sense you would be right that there's only one direct shareholder, but more reasonably, the shareholders of WS would be considered to be Onex and the other investors in the funds sponsored by it that purchased WS (Onex Partners V LP and Onex Partners V-B LP) via Kestrel.

cirrusdragoon

A valid concern from an indirect Air Canada shareholder , very true. I wonder how Air Canada will react to all the future ambition of Westjet . Hope they shake in their red booties.

Fiordland

I would be surprised if there is any shaking. WS has 10 widebody aircraft. On any given day companies like KLM/Air France pre pandemic were using more flights to service Canada than WS.

They probably look at WS with some concern but no shaking. AC should take note of how WS can do such a nice job on setting up a new lounge on their first try. However they probably hve not.

hollywoodcory17

I doubt KLM will be bothered by WS running a mere 2-3x weekly for like 3 months. Don't forget YYC-AMS has had multiple airlines in the summer months in the past. If WS were to suddenly go daily year-round, than maybe I'd be concerned about KLM bailing. I'm more interested to know if they'll codeshare on each others flights and if WS will finally load bookable connections onwards through KL.

It's not like WestJet is literally pushing out every foreign carrier that serves YYC. I remember when they launched DEN people thought it would scare off Frontier, but the F9 service ran for over a year and was ultimately killed by COVID. BA may have dropped it anyways, but all we can do is speculate on that.

YYCguy

I have heard that KLM offered up some of their weekly YYC-AMS flights to WS. Not sure how true that is though.

YXUFlyboy

I agree right now 2-3x a week in peak summer is probably okay, given prior service by TS. It's more the trend I am worried about. CDG, FCO and DUB were net new destinations for YYC so were welcomed. AMS is already well served and better served by KL due to the hub at Schiphol. Unless joins WS joins SkyTeam with a proper loyalty program and KL and WS do a TATL JV, this is just competition on the route. I would prefer them to focus on new destinations and am not particularly interested in routes I can already fly. If WS did kill KL's route, it would be a net negative, as the connections on KL are better (also accessible via SkyTeam and points).

American carriers have retained good service to YYC and WS has good service also. AC seems content to push traffic to UA but provides basic service to larger airports. YYC kills on domestic service and has good trans-border offerings, it's the TATL/TPAC flights we struggle to hold. Yes. BA may have left anyway, and we seem to be gaining LH to FRA as another option. But HU is gone (admittedly probably always a borderline route for them), NRT is gone till at least S23 if it ever comes back and I think LHR will be slow to come back from AC until YVR-LHR recovers.

AC's service will be slow to recover until YVR is back to full strength and we may see some service never return. I could see if WS gets LHR slots and competes with AC they may say the heck with this and pull that route. I really want TATL/TPAC options other than WestJet. New service DUB/FCO/CDG yes, copying routes no.

FWIW F9's service always seemed to be meant as O&D; trying to connect anywhere in their network involved overnights and frustration. I couldn't ever make it work.

YXUFlyboy

Not likely. More likely continue to abandon YYC to WestJet (hence fortress hub comment).

cirrusdragoon

I believe once Alberta successfully diversifies their economy and the economic picture is improved there is when we can start to see further foreign carriers investing in routes to YYC .