Winnipeg James Armstrong Richardson International Airport

[Rookie00]

Originally Posted by Authentic_City

Interesting. Do you know what kind/size of aircraft they're using? Goes back to our earlier discussion about the potential for a smaller jet on this route.

Wonder if the new C series jets could open up new possibilities for routes? The CS100 - purchased by Delta -- seats 108 and has a range of 3500 miles. Perhaps this could be game changer?

Looks like it's operated on a 319. Wikipedia shows Allegiant's 319's have 156 seats. So based off of Allegiant's website, it's just over 3,100 seats available.

[khabibulin]

Originally Posted by casper

Some tricks to doing this. (Not that I would encourage anyone to do it.).

Book two one-way tickets. Unless your going overseas, two one way tickets are the same price as a return most of the time.

Airlines despise this practice and they view it as cheating the system. Most of the time it is not worth their time to look for and discourage people from doing it.

There is a website dedicated to this practice.

https://skiplagged.com/

[CoryB]

Originally Posted by esquire

^ Given that Winnipeg has sustained a flight to Palm Springs for some time now, one to neighbouring LAX shouldn't be that far fetched. People go down there for any number of reasons (cruises, vacations, business, Trans-Pacific air connections)... you would think it would make sense.

The challenge is WestJet and AC aren't about to fly "their customers" to someone else's hub for the trans-Pacific flights, instead wanting to lock in the YWG market to YYC and YVR for those flights. That means if a YWG-LAX flight is to ever stand a chance it is going to need to be from a US based airline. The challenge there is most of those airlines have some caps with the pilots unions on the maximum number of flights they can operate on the type of plane this route would need.

[esquire]

I see that a couple of Sun Country Airlines birds have come to call at YWG this week. Does anyone know what that's about?

[CoryB]

Originally Posted by esquire

I see that a couple of Sun Country Airlines birds have come to call at YWG this week. Does anyone know what that's about?

Just a guess but perhaps it is an emergency lease to replace the Sunwing logo'd plane that caught fire last week in Toronto after backing into a WestJet plane.

[esquire]

^ Sounds plausible!

[kattiff]

Originally Posted by esquire

I see that a couple of Sun Country Airlines birds have come to call at YWG this week. Does anyone know what that's about?

They do the charters down to the casinos destinations like Laughlin

[esquire]

^ Who markets those flights? It's amazing how low key those charters can be...a few years ago Allegiant was running flights to West Wendover, NV from YWG too.

[CoryB]

^^ I think the casino special flights are marketed directly by the casinos as a "vacation package" to their player club programs. Basically you need to be a gambler in order to really get invited to take a spot of one of the charter flights but not a real high stakes gambler, just interested enough to be on their customer list.

[esquire]

^ I'd be interested just for the dirt-cheap getaways. I guess I'm the kind of guy the casinos don't want

The West Wendover packages got as low as US $99 per person for a flight and 3 nights, although I think they were more commonly around US $139. Which is still dirt cheap. I kind of regret never taking one but the departures were always on awkward days, like Tuesday morning or some such. I didn't want to take a week off work just to go to a casino in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere.

Now the cost is US $199 and they don't come to Winnipeg anymore, you have to drive to Grand Forks.

[CoryB]

^^ That's just the thing, from what I have heard the casino charters are to fairly isolated places meaning there is limited things to do other than spend 24/7 in the casino property.

[esquire]

^ West Wendover is a pretty extreme example in that regard.

[wave46]

Originally Posted by CoryB

The challenge is WestJet and AC aren't about to fly "their customers" to someone else's hub for the trans-Pacific flights, instead wanting to lock in the YWG market to YYC and YVR for those flights. That means if a YWG-LAX flight is to ever stand a chance it is going to need to be from a US based airline. The challenge there is most of those airlines have some caps with the pilots unions on the maximum number of flights they can operate on the type of plane this route would need.

AC won't - it has a transpacific operation it wants to feed out of YYC and YVR.

Westjet doesn't have any transpacific ops yet, but their partner Delta sure does. That feed, combined with O&D passengers to Southern California might make it a winner. Admittedly, MSP and SEA are viable transpacific options too, but it is my impression that there's more O&D on California routes.

[CoryB]

WestJet has their Dreamliners on order. Not a chance they risk their overseas operational plans by feeding into Delta's operations.

[esquire]

^ They struck a deal last month for WestJet to feed passengers into the US. It's doubtful that WestJet will be competing with Delta on every overseas route... it's certainly plausible to think that WS will have an interest in feeding traffic to DL as they become more integrated.

[wave46]

Originally Posted by CoryB

WestJet has their Dreamliners on order. Not a chance they risk their overseas operational plans by feeding into Delta's operations.

My impression was that the Dreamliners would replace the 767s on the LGW runs (requiring 4-5 aircraft), leaving 5-6 to establish other routes. Given that most Asia routes will require at least 2 aircraft, that limits the number of routes Westjet can serve, unless they take up more of their options.

[CoryB]

I think WestJet is planning to fly a mix of 767 and 787 (Dreamliners) on the international routes to start. It will be in part to test how much in can expand to international markets. I recall seeing somewhere that flights to Asian markets was specifically on their radar. The 767, and likely 787 fleet are also meant to service the Canada-Hawaii market too, matter of fact that was the reason behind the initial purchase and the Gatwick service was just a way of doing something with the planes and crews in the off-season.

[ILYR]

Continued growth at Winnipeg Richardson International Airport:

The Airport saw 4,305,744 passengers in 2017, a new record. This is a 7.2% increase over the previous year and marks four consecutive years of passenger traffic growth. Cargo traffic was also up in 2017.

http://www.waa.ca/media/news/article...ults-unaudited

Some stats going back to 2010:
Year Total passengers #Increase %Increase
2017 4305744 290544 7.24
2016 4015200 237165 6.28
2015 3778035 108238 2.95
2014 3669797 185899 5.34
2013 3483898 -54277 -1.53
2012 3538175 148938 4.39
2011 3389237 19263 0.57
2010 3369974

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_busiest_airports_in_Canada#Canada's_busiest_airports_by_passenger_traffic_January_-_November

[esquire]

^ Pretty remarkable growth considering that Manitoba isn't in some kind of economic boom situation. I wonder what's driving that growth? Also, how high do the numbers have to get before we unlock achievements like new routes or terminal expansions?

[Andy6]

How did Vancouver, Edmonton, Regina and Calgary avoid having their airports named after someone during the great renaming era of the 2000s?