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occidentalcapital said:
Consider - if YEG plays this right... this could be big. YEG needs to lock down India service before the two additional cities are chosen by India. This gives YEG a head start to build a route, and grow it through the power of incumbency. If successful, this will capture enough of the Alberta-India market to make service from any other Alberta city nonviable. I have no idea when India gets to choose their two additional cities, but YEG should get on this before that happens.
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Looked up the distances and Edmonton being so far north makes it closer to much of India than Vancouver is. Demand is obviously the main factor but if it's there I can see Edmonton being a good immigration port of entry for the same reason Edmonton makes a good air cargo hub for Asia. Great-circle navigation is a beautiful thing.

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yeggator said:
If an Indian airliner flies the route, it might not be an issue for them, no? India's been steadfastly neutral throughout the conflict.
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Agreed, and let's be realistic that neither Air Canada or WestJet would fly the route from Edmonton. So it would be an indian carrier, and yes they have overflight rights for Russia.
 
Quebec City is a big win. Westjet doesn't even fly to Quebec City year around from their "global hub" of Calgary. Air Canada offers just a few other domestic destinations from Quebec City. I hope people will take advantage of this flight. No doubt Quebec City is the most unique/European feeling city in Canada so it should be a really good getaway for people, plus should cater to the Quebecois population in Alberta.
 
BrettB said:
It'll be interesting to see how that route does. I lived in Quebec City for years, and it was hard to get there from Edmonton (for a domestic route) -- and yet, the city has never really had good air service for the size of the place.
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Yeah, getting to/from Quebec City has always involved at least 1 connection. 1 connection isn't bad, but it's still more annoying for many, considering the city is well-known as a tourist destination and not that far. Within Quebec, Dorval/Trudeau has essentially been the airport for the province. Most tourists to Quebec City are either already close enough to drive, bus, or train (Ontario, rest of Quebec, Maritimes, New England) or further away that they're probably planning a larger trip that involves Montreal anyway. That, and Quebec City is far more insular than Montreal, which is the city that Quebec uses to interface with the wider world. Quebec City lacks the level of business and personal connections to other parts of Canada, which means most travel is either from within Quebec for those reasons or are tourists. This cuts significantly the amount of travel to the city and the amount of destinations you need. I guarantee you in any given year there's more Haligonians who've moved to Edmonton than Quebecois de Quebec, despite the latter having double the population of the former. If people have any personal or business connections with Quebec in Alberta, it's usually with Montreal, which has a higher Anglo population, more institutions to draw Anglophones (McGill in particular), and larger businesses that have operations outside of La Belle Province. It's not uncommon to find someone who is going on a business trip to Montreal, but I've only come across the same for Quebec City a couple times.

Regardless, this Quebec City flight is awesome. I really appreciate that Flair is thinking outside the box and delivering destinations you wouldn't expect for YEG. The Nashville one is another. Despite there being an obvious demographic here interested in what Nashville offers, I doubt we'd have ever seen such a flight from Westjet or Air Canada.
 
A tale of two airports:

YEG celebrating a QC direct and Nanaimo

YYC celebrating a new direct Tokyo, Barcelona and Edinburgh with additional flights to Dub,Par,Rome.

WestJet announces new service to Japan and Europe as part of planned expansion from YYC Calgary International Airport

New intercontinental routes between Calgary and Tokyo, Barcelona, Edinburgh, and increased frequencies between Calgary and Dublin, London, Paris and Rome significantly enhance options for leisure guests, business travel and cargo services
www.westjet.com www.westjet.com
 
IanO said:
A tale of two airports:

YEG celebrating a QC direct and Nanaimo

YYC celebrating a new direct Tokyo, Barcelona and Edinburgh with additional flights to Dub,Par,Rome.

WestJet announces new service to Japan and Europe as part of planned expansion from YYC Calgary International Airport

New intercontinental routes between Calgary and Tokyo, Barcelona, Edinburgh, and increased frequencies between Calgary and Dublin, London, Paris and Rome significantly enhance options for leisure guests, business travel and cargo services
www.westjet.com www.westjet.com
Click to expand...

And a tale of a Calgary-based airline that is focused on consolidating all its international operations from one airport and that has also entered in a partnership with a provincial government with a similar focus on one city.
 
I think it’s no secret that WestJet is a major anchor tenant at Calgary International Airport. At least Edmonton is getting more national options.
 
Exciting for WestJet and YYC no doubt although they have a bit of a ceiling on their long distance international ambitions with those 7 Dreamliner frames. They could also end up losing some AC (not yet) or other long haul international carriers which could temper that excitement a bit.
 
IanO said:
A tale of two airports:

YEG celebrating a QC direct and Nanaimo

YYC celebrating a new direct Tokyo, Barcelona and Edinburgh with additional flights to Dub,Par,Rome.

WestJet announces new service to Japan and Europe as part of planned expansion from YYC Calgary International Airport

New intercontinental routes between Calgary and Tokyo, Barcelona, Edinburgh, and increased frequencies between Calgary and Dublin, London, Paris and Rome significantly enhance options for leisure guests, business travel and cargo services
www.westjet.com www.westjet.com
Click to expand...
But the full picture is that this was only made possible by WestJet ending basically all overseas flying from Toronto and Vancouver, and cancelling orders for any future widebody aircraft (i.e. this is about it for international flying, no growth planned from here). This is not the picture of a healthy airline. WestJet's fascination with Calgary has actually resulted in Air Canada ending majority of regional and US business flying out of Calgary- it is really doubtful whether WestJet is able to sustain their existing network at current fare levels. Air Canada clearly decided it was unsustainable. I think the launch of these routes is further evidence of WestJet being run like a Calgary vanity project, and not as an actual business-minded concern. In their current format, Westjet may not be long for this world...
 
occidentalcapital said:
But the full picture is that this was only made possible by WestJet ending basically all overseas flying from Toronto and Vancouver, and cancelling orders for any future widebody aircraft (i.e. this is about it for international flying, no growth planned from here). This is not the picture of a healthy airline. WestJet's fascination with Calgary has actually resulted in Air Canada ending majority of regional and US business flying out of Calgary- it is really doubtful whether WestJet is able to sustain their existing network at current fare levels. Air Canada clearly decided it was unsustainable. I think the launch of these routes is further evidence of WestJet being run like a Calgary vanity project, and not as an actual business-minded concern. In their current format, Westjet may not be long for this world...
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This is the result of Onex effectively doubling down on Calgary. When Onex bought WestJet (acquisition closed December 2019) it was right before COVID. The pandemic caved virtually any forecastable model Onex had on WestJet and now the return profile to Onex is not even close to what was predicted. Today, Onex is completely restrategizing to salvage a return profile on their investment, which has led to them doubling down on Calgary as a "global hub". How this shapes up, who knows, but this is entirely the symptom of a private equity group restrategizing to effectively salvage an investment.
 
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