Ottawa Macdonald-Cartier International Airport (YOW/CYOW)

[harls]

^ Cesar Pelli, I hear.

[YOWflier]

Originally Posted by chris

If you guys want hard number for Origin and Destination passenger traffic to and from the USA for every single Canadian city, go to the StatsCan website...the latest results are from 2004 but they are still very useful. You will see that YOW is still lacking the right amount of passenger traffic to have non-stop flights to many US destinations, such as SFO

Air routes are not solely based on O&D traffic. If they were then the concept of a hub wouldn't exist. Connecting traffic is a large factor in determining the viability of an air route, and a SFO non-stop would serve as a gateway to California, the entire Western US, and Asia-Pacific.

There is ample demand right now for a daily YOW-SFO service. There is also ample demand for a 3-5x weekly YOW-FRA service.

[chris]

Originally Posted by ac888yow

Air routes are not solely based on O&D traffic. If they were then the concept of a hub wouldn't exist. Connecting traffic is a large factor in determining the viability of an air route, and a SFO non-stop would serve as a gateway to California, the entire Western US, and Asia-Pacific.

Connecting traffic...but for whom? There is an Air Canada hub to the east and to the southwest. Pax from YHZ, YYT, YQB, YQM, YDF, YSJ, YFC, and YYG would chose to connect in YUL or YYZ before YOW, especially considering the flight times are conveniently scheduled to produce connecting opportunities for Atlantic Canadian going westward in both YUL and YYZ.

[YOWflier]

Originally Posted by chris

Connecting traffic...but for whom?

For the pax living in the cities of Ottawa, Gatineau, and the surrounding region of Eastern Ontario (Cornwall, Brockville, Kingston, etc.). SFO is a main United/Star Alliance hub offering a multitude of connection possibilities to the regions I mentioned earlier and beyond.

Pax from YHZ, YYT, YQB, YQM, YDF, YSJ, YFC, and YYG would choose to connect in YUL or YYZ before YOW

YOW will never be a hub operation like YUL or YYZ. It is a niche market driven almost entirely by demand. However, I wouldn't automatically assume all Eastern pax would choose YUL or YYZ before YOW. YUL and YYZ would certainly retain most of those pax, but YOW would certainly attract a few.

Don't underestimate the convenience of connecting through a much smaller YOW airport. One huge benefit is in the US customs pre-clearance. Doing so in YOW is a breeze, whereas doing the same in YYZ is a disaster (so much so that I personally refuse to connect through YYZ to the US anymore because of it). I've never pre-cleared in YUL, but I'm sure it's also much busier than YOW.

[FFX-ME]

air canada is a focus city of air canada and air canada jazz. Plus it is also the hub of zoom airlines and first air, but they arent remarquable airlines. a Fra and sfo flight will certainly be good as to go to many destinations in asia and europe you need to make at least 2 or 3 connections which people hate. So vancouver and san francisco will connect yow to asia and frankfurt and london will connect us to europe and the world. It would be nice to have year round flights to Paris to but with heathrow it wouldnt be very usefull. Plus, if Halifax can support a frankfurt flight why couldnt ottawa?

[YOWflier]

To my knowledge there is no carrier flying YHZ-FRA.

[FFX-ME]

condor airlines has seasonal flights from halifax to frankfurt. Air transat has flights to frankfurt from halifax. So they have to, one year round and one seasonal but i dont know how often. But it is true that halifax is a much more important hub than ottawa. But i checked and even whitehorse has a seasonal service to fra so it is very possible and feasable for ottawa.

[eemy]

I don't know about Halifax, but Whitehorse has a flight because of tour operators for the northern lights, colours or something like that. I'm fairly certain that the east coast cities get them for the same reasons. For whatever reasons, Ottawa doesn't seem to draw a lot of these tour groups.

While I'd prefer YOW-SFO, I think that UAX should consider operating YOW-DEN as an alternate. It's not nearly as far, and it would be the perfect connecting point for SFO and LAX (which also has a significant number of O&D passengers) and the entire western US.

How many flights does YOW-BOS get? It seems they only have 3 CRJ daily, which seems kind of underserved.

[YOWflier]

Originally Posted by FFX-ME

condor airlines has seasonal flights from halifax to frankfurt. Air transat has flights to frankfurt from halifax. So they have to, one year round and one seasonal but i dont know how often. But it is true that halifax is a much more important hub than ottawa. But i checked and even whitehorse has a seasonal service to fra so it is very possible and feasable for ottawa.

I meant that no legacy carrier flies YHZ-FRA. The charter airlines are a different story, and don't really "count" in my book. They mean nothing as far as being a more important "hub".

I tend to focus more on the legacy carriers because them flying a route is proof that there exists not only a low-yield leisure component (traveller) but more importantly a high-yield premium component (that is absent with the charters).

Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't turn away a charter from flying YOW-anywhere, but unless an airport has a healthy dose of legacy airlines serving it the operation is "small time".

[chris]

Meh...YOW-BOS 3 daily CRJ seems adequate. The market isn't huge...its smaller than YOW-SFO actually.

What would be interesting about YOW-DEN is that the flight would not only serve O&D pax, but also serve as a connecting point for residents of Ottawa to places such as LAX, SFO, LAS, SAN, and SLC.

[BlackRedGold]

Originally Posted by chris

What would be interesting about YOW-DEN is that the flight would not only serve O&D pax, but also serve as a connecting point for residents of Ottawa to places such as LAX, SFO, LAS, SAN, and SLC.

It's similiar to what SFO could do but SFO could also serve as a connecting point to locations west of SFO like Hawaii, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand.

[YOWflier]

Rumour has it that Frontier (probably a regional partner Horizon or Republic) is snooping around looking at a potential YOW-DEN. They have just begun expanding into Canada with the first destination being Calgary.

I'd prefer United (Express), but I'd take Frontier.

[chris]

Originally Posted by ac888yow

For the pax living in the cities of Ottawa, Gatineau, and the surrounding region of Eastern Ontario (Cornwall, Brockville, Kingston, etc.). SFO is a main United/Star Alliance hub offering a multitude of connection possibilities to the regions I mentioned earlier and beyond.

YOW will never be a hub operation like YUL or YYZ. It is a niche market driven almost entirely by demand. However, I wouldn't automatically assume all Eastern pax would choose YUL or YYZ before YOW. YUL and YYZ would certainly retain most of those pax, but YOW would certainly attract a few.

Don't underestimate the convenience of connecting through a much smaller YOW airport. One huge benefit is in the US customs pre-clearance. Doing so in YOW is a breeze, whereas doing the same in YYZ is a disaster (so much so that I personally refuse to connect through YYZ to the US anymore because of it). I've never pre-cleared in YUL, but I'm sure it's also much busier than YOW.

But YOW doesn't even HAVE flights to YYT, YYG, YDF, YQM, YSJ, and YFC!

[YOWflier]

I was referring to YHZ and all those who connect through it from surrounding areas.

Besides, I never said such a route would be a connection magnet. It's purpose would almost solely be to satisfy the demand from the Ottawa/Eastern Ontario region, with a few connections trickling in here and there.

Kind of like a European traveller using LHR-YOW on Air Canada (Flt. 889) to connect to a US destination. This is pretty much the last routing you'd expect to see, and while it is a tiny number, it does actually happen.

I know a fellow who works baggage here at YOW and he tells me about the "interesting" connections he sees when (off)loading flights. It is this same fellow who tells me about the consistently huge number of FRA-destined baggage loaded onto Air Canada Flt. 888 YOW-LHR (my namesake). Further evidence that a YOW-FRA nonstop, probably on AC, is imminent.

[Coldrsx]

^dont see why not...YEG is apparently getting a LH or AC to FRA this fall or spring when more 67's are free so i could see YOW getting the same thing.

[FFX-ME]

The big difference between edmonton and Ottawa is that Ottawa is at a driving distance from Montreal, Calgary is not.



And realy ac, non-stop flights to frankfurt?

[eemy]

It's been rumoured for awhile now and AC even listed it as one of the routes they would like to operate in an Annual Report or some other document. The problem seems to mainly be aircraft availability which will probably be dealt with in the next year or two as the older aircraft leave and AC can afford to actually increase the size of the fleet.

[Odot.]

Does anyone know the number of passengers who travel between Ottawa and St. John's on a regular basis. I know that there are a lot of people in Ottawa who are from Newfoundland but is it enough to support a non-stop flight? The obvious answer would be no becasue a flight doesn't exist but I think it would make for great connections between east and west and it would allow all Newfoundland bound traffic from Ottawa to avoid Toronto or Halifax. What are your guys thoughts on this?

[YOWflier]

^^ I remember seeing that document. It showed a future route map and YOW-FRA was definitely on there. Aircraft and FRA slot availability are the two problems right now for this route.

I'm hopeful the latest we'll see this route is in 2010 when AC begins taking 787 deliveries, but it would be great to see it sooner.

[chris]

jeremy_haak and ac888yow, would any fo you guys know how to access the document you guys are talking about? I actually remember it too, but I have no clue how to access it. I'm just curious because I'm sure it offered a pretty sense of where AC saw potential growth in the future.