YYCguy

I had no idea that YHZ-YQM was even a route! That can’t be a very long flight!

V1213

Sorry - got my wires crossed.
YHZ-YQM is not a route, and YYZ-YQM is still in the schedule a few days a week at this stage.

Bennybear

we just got notification too, Was so happy for day time flights, we usually go on Alaska but thought now we can use west jet non stop. Not happy that there are only red eyes, and we lose a day of our trip. Wondering if we can rebook other dates. Also wish they’d give more of a reason. Most schedule changes are pretty minor, but we paid extra to fly day time non stop and now we’re back on a red eye twelve hours earlier.

Denguin

More of a reason? It's just schedule optimization to maximize profitability based upon resources and demand, which is always ongoing in the industry. IMO, the reason is moot for a distant change.

You can ask to be re-accommodated on any flight of your choosing, free of charge, generally +/- 2 days. You may also ask for your outbound leg to be adjusted. Alternatively, you can request a refund.

Theoretically, if they are unable to re-accommodate you on another WestJet flight within 9 hours of the original departure, they must re-book you on any other airline at their cost. This is a major uphill battle, though, and isn't worth pursuing unless in dire circumstances.

Bennybear

Thanks for your response. I do understand there will be changes but they’ve eliminated all day time return flights and moved us to earlier flights the day before with same flight number. They sold those daytime flights for more than the red eyes, so it’s a pretty big schedule change. My guess is they’ll next combine the nonstop Calgary flights with those that stop in Vancouver if they don’t get the loads, Which were cheaper to begin with.

FlyerJ

Very unlikely for winter 22/23. Airlines typically publish initial (draft, subject to change) schedules about 11 months out. They then finalize each season’s schedule a couple of months prior to the start of that season. What you see scheduled now for winter flights almost certainly will stick. They won’t make another round of en masse schedule updates — they don’t keep tinkering with it.

Adam Smith

Expect they've spent the last 2.5 years doing exactly that. For the first two years, it was cancelling things. This spring, they were frantically trying to add capacity on relatively short notice. Now they're back to cancelling things because the whole air travel system is breaking down everywhere.

It also doesn't take an "en masse" schedule change to get one route changed/cancelled.

I don't know what will happen to @Bennybear's flights, but I think you're overestimating the degree of certainty that should be attached to anything specific on the schedule.

Error 601

Is that a sustainable use for a billion dollars worth of airplane?

YYCguy

I would imagine that, until other markets more suitable for those frames are procured, this will be a stop gap measure.

Adam Smith

Why not? You can use a widebody on any length of route, as long as you sell enough seats at a high enough price that it's profitable.

From a utilization perspective, the YYC-Mexico flights aren't great, but WS was running 2x daily, sometimes even 3x, I think, 737s on some of those routes at peak times in the Before Times. If you replace 2x 737 with 1x 789, that could easily be a profitable trade. And maybe you send one of them to YYZ as a redeye to keep the plane generating revenue (I haven't looked at the schedule to see whether that's the case).

The Hawaii routes seem to do well, and have the aircraft operating through what's the middle of the night on the continent. Less lucrative than European flights, maybe, but also shorter with lower costs to operate.

AC's investor presentations in the roughly 2016-2019 period contain a bunch of info on the value of flexing capacity between TATL routes in the summer and sun routes in the winter. That's all WS is doing here. Remember back when they used to lease 757s for Hawaii in the winter? Now they own 789s and fly them TATL in the summer, sun in the winter.

tracon

Adding YVR-PVR to the list should help.

https://www.aeroroutes.com/eng/220815-wsnw22yvrpvr

aerobod

The break even point at current fuel costs is about 6 flight hours for a 787-9 to be more cost effective than two 737 MAX 8s (about 75% of the MAX 8 range). This is mainly down to the cost of the fuel burn with the higher fuel weights in two MAX-8s exceeding the 787-9 much higher structure weight (about 3 times that of a MAX 8 plus partial fuel load).

cedric

There's got to be more than that. Eg utilization, higher yield on routes with premium demand. Otherwise, why operate YYC-YYZ // YVR-YYZ? Those aircraft can switch off between YYC, YYZ & YVR routes in Europe, no need to do so with a domestic segment.

aerobod

There are more factors on non point-to-point routes such as sun destinations, such as aircraft utilization increase through positioning by say, adding in a YYZ-YYC in conjunction with YYC-LGW-YYZ, but the original premise that it is cheaper to run a 787 on a route instead of 2x 737s only holds at ranges approaching the maximum for a 737, if all other factors of utilization, crew availability, available landing slots, etc are not constraints.

Error 601

It isn't that it's a widebody, I'm just under the impression the capital cost of the 787-9 is extraordinarily high and that investment was justified by plans that suffered a bird strike from the largest black swan ever recorded.