Canadian Airport Thread II

[fanofYOW]

I mean, is anyone surprised? Instead of running underserved routes they preferred to be the 5th or 6th airline to run a specific route. Good bye and good riddance.

[IRT_BMT_IND]

Originally Posted by JakeLRS

Well the good news is that their loads were crap.
Bad news, they are shutting down at the very end of the University/College reading week.

I have family who flew out west for the weekend and I booked them on Flair back in january. They asked why not Lynx, my reasoning is because I was skeptical based on their crappy loads.


Media outlets are starting to pick up the story. I'm sure it'll be a big fuss tomorrow. I think its nice of them to continue flying until Sunday instead of wrapping ops up at midnight tonight. It would definitely be much more chaotic if that were the case.

If they don't have enough cash to pay for fuel and ground handling upfront I'd say there's a decent chance they won't be able to operate to the 26th.

[Djeffery]

Originally Posted by IRT_BMT_IND

If they don't have enough cash to pay for fuel and ground handling upfront I'd say there's a decent chance they won't be able to operate to the 26th.

Or staff saying "fuckit"

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by Djeffery

Or staff saying "fuckit"

Coincidentally Lynx’s flight attendants had just voted to unionize with CUPE.

[Zmonkey]

Originally Posted by fanofYOW

I mean, is anyone surprised? Instead of running underserved routes they preferred to be the 5th or 6th airline to run a specific route. Good bye and good riddance.

People being happy an airline going away, one that was super cheap to boot, always surprises me.

[Zmonkey]

Westjet offering some relief fares with Lynx going away.
https://www.westjet.com/en-ca/news/2...ter%3A20240223

[LO 044]

Here's the thing I don't understand. YUL is owed over $1 million and YYZ is owed over $2 million by Lynx among other parties owed money. This isn't exactly chump change. CRA is owed over $70 million by Lynx. Does this sound familiar? I'm assuming no one will get anything back as the planes are leased and office furniture doesn't amount to millions of dollars that can be used to pay off the debts.

If I were YYZ or YUL or any other private company, wouldn't I demand up front cash payment from Flair immediately? Starting tomorrow? After I was just burned by Lynx? Of course I don't know if any of the private entities are owed money at this point and I don't know if there are allowances in these contracts to force Flair to pay for services up front. But you would think that any prudent business would take the steps I mentioned or else they will be the last one standing in the bankruptcy line trying to get money back. Flair has no fixed assets either I believe so it seems like a question of when not if and the demise might have been accelerated due to Lynx.

[casper]

Originally Posted by Djeffery

They were until 25 minutes ago. Hours after they made this decision. Wonder how much more money they managed to screw people out of in that time? I know the people will get it back from their credit cards, eventually. Will be a hardship for many though, who may have booked travel several months down the road and will likely have to wait until after those dates to get credit card refunds and in the meantime, need to outlay that again to buy the flights with someone else, likely at now an even higher fare than earlier today.

It was pointless. Anyone who booked with them will dispute it with the credit card company and should get a refund.

The only reason to keep the booking system open was they simply are not that well organised and staff likely lose all motivation if your told your losing your job.

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by Zmonkey

People being happy an airline going away, one that was super cheap to boot, always surprises me.

Maybe because people realize they could only be super cheap by stiffing suppliers and their employees? People who would rather have a healthy industry even if it means fewer players.

[fanofYOW]

Originally Posted by Zmonkey

People being happy an airline going away, one that was super cheap to boot, always surprises me.

I’m pretty selfish tbh. They never started service in YOW so it doesn’t affect me personally. Maybe if they based the planes in underserved airports starving for direct flights (that are also sustainable), they may have faired better. But no, a 6th (?) carrier doing YVR-YYZ is much more important

[Dominion301]

Originally Posted by fanofYOW

I’m pretty selfish tbh. They never started service in YOW so it doesn’t affect me personally. Maybe if they based the planes in underserved airports starving for direct flights (that are also sustainable), they may have faired better. But no, a 6th (?) carrier doing YVR-YYZ is much more important

I know someone who her and husband and two kids had booked YOW-YVR for July. Now she'll have to scramble and hope for a refund and book with another airline.

[fanofYOW]

Originally Posted by Dominion301

I know someone who her and husband and two kids had booked YOW-YVR for July. Now she'll have to scramble and hope for a refund and book with another airline.

Which is unfortunate. I hope they are able to manage a semi-decent price or if they are flexible, go another time. Other than instances like that, YOW is unaffected.

[MonctonRad]

Duncan Dee, the former COO of Air Canada (who has retired to Grand Barachois NB) has issued this statement regarding the demise of Lynx:

"A very sad day for Canada's airline community & the communities (like Fredericton/YFC) that Lynx & its employees served.

Unlike many countries on earth, Canada, sadly, is inhospitable territory for new entrants, especially ultra low cost carriers.

Where many other markets allow for ULCCs to aggressively stimulate air travel with bargain basement fares, the stimulative effect ULCCs can have on the Canadian market is unheard of with our ultra high anciliary fees which make it impossible for ULCCs do what they do successfully in virtually every advanced (and some not so advanced) economy on earth: Stimulate travel. Open new markets. Bake a larger pie vs fighting for their piece of an existing pie.

When a base $20 or $50 air fare quickly becomes $200+ when all the taxes, fees & charges are included, there's not much stimulation any ULCC can do which is why US LCCs have largely avoided entering Canada in the first place (For example, Southwest & Spirit have largely avoided entering the Canada-US transborder market like the plague even as they expand to Mexico, Latin America & the Caribbean).

So, in Canada, ULCCs like Lynx are forced to mainly do battle with the large incumbents with their established sales networks, much deeper pockets & addictive frequent flier programs.

Add to that Canada's highly restrictive foreign ownership & control policies and ULCCs/new entrants emerge with one if not both hands tied behind their backs.

Unless & until Canada has a serious look at its treatment of air travelers, airlines & airports as cash cows, this situation will never change.

When politicians like Canada's Transport Min, expect other airlines to now step in to accommodate those from airlines that cease operations, the question must be asked: "who pays?" because if it isn't the Gov, the carrier ceasing operations or the travelers who bought tickets on the airline that ceased operations, the ones who are paying are the travelers who bought their tickets on the airlines that continue to operate."

Since he has retired, he has complete freedom to speak his mind. It would appear the airline industry in Canada is a sick oligopoly, used as a government cash cow, designed to protect existing carriers, and hostile to ULCC start-ups. American airlines avoid Canada whereever possible.

[Nashe]

It gets even more "gross" when you consider the bailout cash companies like AC have gotten over the years.

[Zmonkey]

Originally Posted by fanofYOW

I’m pretty selfish tbh. They never started service in YOW so it doesn’t affect me personally. Maybe if they based the planes in underserved airports starving for direct flights (that are also sustainable), they may have faired better. But no, a 6th (?) carrier doing YVR-YYZ is much more important

It does affect you, Porter now has more room to increase prices for Western Canada flights, especially those to Calgary. It also allows them to increase prices to Vancouver as they know Lynx will never be there.

Canadians pay the highest airline fees per km in the rich world. Ottawa tends to be on the higher end to boot with its limited service. That will just continue.

YVR - YYZ represents 25% of Canadas population, with fairly high fares. They can't ignore that.
Canada is geographically spread, but population is concentrated. the Top 10 cities in Canada (and there metros) represent about 65% of the population. In the USA its about 30%. Based on this they all need to start serving the same cities since that's where everyone lives and travels to. You can't fill a Thunder Bay to Regina flight very often.

You are in Ottawa, look at Porter, doing the same type of market expansion as Lynx did just with a eastern Canada perspective compared to a Western Canada one. If you think Lynx was poorly executed, do you equally believe Porter will fail as there strategy of route expansion is fairly similar - serve the most in demand routes first.

[Djeffery]

Originally Posted by Zmonkey

You are in Ottawa, look at Porter, doing the same type of market expansion as Lynx did just with a eastern Canada perspective compared to a Western Canada one. If you think Lynx was poorly executed, do you equally believe Porter will fail as there strategy of route expansion is fairly similar - serve the most in demand routes first.

Except Porter has been at this for almost 20 years, Lynx 2. Porter focused on the low hanging fruit for years before branching out. They managed to get themselves a profile and reputation amongst the travelling public, some stable financial footing and the ability to make a business case for their expansions. Even WestJet stuck to the west for several years before becoming a cross Canada carrier. I do think Lynx would have been fine had they only stuck to YYC-YVR/YYZ for a while before adding in a bunch of other cities so early on in their history.

[JakeLRS]

Originally Posted by Djeffery

Except Porter has been at this for almost 20 years, Lynx 2. Porter focused on the low hanging fruit for years before branching out. They managed to get themselves a profile and reputation amongst the travelling public, some stable financial footing and the ability to make a business case for their expansions. Even WestJet stuck to the west for several years before becoming a cross Canada carrier. I do think Lynx would have been fine had they only stuck to YYC-YVR/YYZ for a while before adding in a bunch of other cities so early on in their history.

Well yes and no. Operating only YYC-YVR/YYZ would not be a sustainable model for the prices they were charging and having an insane amount of competition. I know enerjet was originally entrenched in YYC, but Lynx’s main failure (in my opinion) was trying to entrench themselves in westjet territory. Had they focused on YYZ or some other smaller markets, they may have been able to see better margins, but unfortunately, they were getting trumped by westjet out west, and expanding into YUL rapidly.


Flair had a good fitting in YHM and had a pretty good base up until swoop kicked them out. Now flair has retrenched themselves in YKF and have very good brand awareness their.

[LO 044]

Originally Posted by Djeffery

Except Porter has been at this for almost 20 years, Lynx 2. Porter focused on the low hanging fruit for years before branching out. They managed to get themselves a profile and reputation amongst the travelling public, some stable financial footing and the ability to make a business case for their expansions. Even WestJet stuck to the west for several years before becoming a cross Canada carrier. I do think Lynx would have been fine had they only stuck to YYC-YVR/YYZ for a while before adding in a bunch of other cities so early on in their history.

I don't admit to be an expert on Porter but everything I read makes your "Porter has been at this for almost 20 years" a little simplistic. They have been around but really have not competed with anyone except themselves when they had Billy Bishop almost entirely to themselves. Even then they only had to worry about one type of aircraft the Q400. On top of that, I feel that AC and WS are not paying attention to PD yet. At some point AC will jump on PD if it feels it's getting to big. They'll offer quadruple Aeroplan miles, lower prices and so on to weed out PD. Porter is now playing in the big league and will also have to contend with US carriers for any flight offerings to the US for example. People have also said that they're prices aren't even necessarily cheaper than AC or WS so it will be interesting to see what happens.

I understand their game plan. They have "supposedly" a large enough bank roll for now that they are willing to lose tons of money on routes (to YYC for example) in order to get their brand noticeable and for people to take a chance on them. I hope they succeed. They offer a couple of flights to YEG and I believe those loads are better than their YYC loads so we'll see. I think they have a much better chance than Flair to succeed so I actually hope that Flair fails sooner than later so they have a chance.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by LO 044

People have also said that they're prices aren't even necessarily cheaper than AC or WS so it will be interesting to see what happens.

But you get free beer!!!!

[RomanR27]

Originally Posted by LO 044

I don't admit to be an expert on Porter but everything I read makes your "Porter has been at this for almost 20 years" a little simplistic. They have been around but really have not competed with anyone except themselves when they had Billy Bishop almost entirely to themselves. Even then they only had to worry about one type of aircraft the Q400. On top of that, I feel that AC and WS are not paying attention to PD yet. At some point AC will jump on PD if it feels it's getting to big. They'll offer quadruple Aeroplan miles, lower prices and so on to weed out PD. Porter is now playing in the big league and will also have to contend with US carriers for any flight offerings to the US for example. People have also said that they're prices aren't even necessarily cheaper than AC or WS so it will be interesting to see what happens.

I understand their game plan. They have "supposedly" a large enough bank roll for now that they are willing to lose tons of money on routes (to YYC for example) in order to get their brand noticeable and for people to take a chance on them. I hope they succeed. They offer a couple of flights to YEG and I believe those loads are better than their YYC loads so we'll see. I think they have a much better chance than Flair to succeed so I actually hope that Flair fails sooner than later so they have a chance.

This is why YOW is and will be a big part of their ops. AC and WS can do what they can on many routes out of YYZ, but unless they beef up service to YOW on many routes Porter will enjoy a much larger slice of the pie than they do at YYZ (and in some cases, a monopoly).

Look at YYZ-MCO for instance. You have AC 4x daily (with a fifth on Saturday), two of which are mainline (usually widebodies). You have 2-3x daily on WS. On the ULCC side you have Jetlines flying it a few times a week, and Flair is daily to SFB. Porter's daily E2 is a drop in the bucket of the overall capacity on that route.

Meanwhile over at YOW, they only compete with 2x weekly Rouge, 2x weekly Westjet and 3x weekly Flair to SFB, making their daily flight account for about 45% of the weekly capacity out of Ottawa to Orlando (north of 60% if you exclude SFB). They're the only direct options to Orlando on Wednesday and Sunday. They'll be continuing it daily in the summer, the only carrier to serve the route in that time.

Edit to add: Porter is actually adding a second YOW-MCO flight for the peak March Break season on Fridays and Saturdays, from MAR02 until MAR23 (so seven additional frequencies per direction over this time). They are not doing this out of YYZ.