Winnipeg James Armstrong Richardson International Airport

[buzzg]

If this baggage belt replacement is truly going to take a year... What a fucking nightmare.

Currently at the airport and been waiting in the drop off line half an hour. Couldn’t have been more than 50 people in front of me. I have Nexus but they don’t have a Nexus line for this bag drop off. It’s nuts in here.

[Riverman]

What? It was broken at Christmas!

[esquire]

What is the issue with the bag drop belt? It has been working normally whenever I've been in there. I was expecting problems based on what I've read here, but I couldn't see a single thing wrong with it. No lines, no problems.

[Biff]

We were just through there twice recently and had no issues?

[kattiff]

I said before the belt system is not designed for what it was designed to do. It’s over capacity and the equipment is crap as it keeps breaking so they have to legit REDO the ENTIRE belt system and the equipment for minimum now they are saying a year but this is the stupid corrupt cheap WAA so it will prob take forever!

That’s why all the over size belts are being put in around security area by Stella’s. they haven’t decided if they are putting holes in thr ground to introduce bags into the system or once passengers put bags through the machines then carry them over to the main belt. Since the security equipment won’t be working on the main belt these temporary machines will do the scanning so the main belt will be a giant chute really.
So if you look in future the former main door for employees has been changed over to belts and empolyees have to go through the main security area.

Plus you ever been in Transborder or around Gate 4-6 on Friday and Saturday afternoons. There are no gates, planes are waiting 20-45min for a gate (which a lot of time during a turn flight) and Intl passengers into Canada Customs are being held on the planes or in the hallways since it’s over capacity and their aren’t enough machines.

Airport didn’t expect charter season to be so busy...

One proposal thrown out there ive heard was when they built Gate 1 to build a 3rd floor for US flights and Redesign the bridges so it can be similar to Edmonton.... have them up above no more swing gates and the second floor currently be all domestic/intl area.
So like when Air Canada’s Cancún flight arrives intl and goes out domestic, Or WestJets domestic flight arrives needs to go out as transborder they wouldn’t have to tow the plane just leave it there and no issue. Everyone follow?

WAA are very difficult to deal with for the airlines my friends have said

[esquire]

^ Despite the big dollars that WAA spent on the new terminal, it was relatively modest in size and scale. Here we are not even a decade later, and it's clear that the terminal is starting to strain under the passenger load. And it's not even like Winnipeg has experienced some kind of explosive growth in that time either.

That said, adding a third level seems like quite an expense and something unlikely to come out well. Why not just extend the terminal east to add a couple more gates and some customs and immigration space, and address the most pressing problems that way? Yeah it sucks for AC to have to push a 320 from gate 3 to gate 10, but if it saves 9 figures in construction costs vs. adding a third level, then WAA can provide the push for free.

[kattiff]

Originally Posted by esquire

^ Despite the big dollars that WAA spent on the new terminal, it was relatively modest in size and scale. Here we are not even a decade later, and it's clear that the terminal is starting to strain under the passenger load. And it's not even like Winnipeg has experienced some kind of explosive growth in that time either.

That said, adding a third level seems like quite an expense and something unlikely to come out well. Why not just extend the terminal east to add a couple more gates and some customs and immigration space, and address the most pressing problems that way? Yeah it sucks for AC to have to push a 320 from gate 3 to gate 10, but if it saves 9 figures in construction costs vs. adding a third level, then WAA can provide the push for free.

The problem for Canada Customs to expand is the cut into the Domestic/Intl bagroom to the west and US bagroom their own offices to the east. Which won’t happen any time soon.
Guess they could redo the bag rooms during an expansion of the building since they have to redo the belts but knowing how it will work.. redo belts then expand building to expand belts again or whatever.

[pspeid]

Disaster! Nightmare! WHY didn't someone plan for this?? Oh, the the hand-wringing we love to do....

[kattiff]

Originally Posted by pspeid

Disaster! Nightmare! WHY didn't someone plan for this?? Oh, the the hand-wringing we love to do....

Ain’t that true! Hahaha

[casper]

Originally Posted by esquire

^ Rouge to YQT would be weird, isn't their smallest plane a 319?

YXE is funny too, I haven't flown that route since I went on a Canadian turboprop back in 1995 so I'm not up to speed on it, but didn't AC drop that run a few years back only to reinstate it? I wonder if it has fallen victim to reduced UA capacity in Winnipeg since those routes (ORD in particular) were the only network flights where I can imagine connecting in Winnipeg made sense for people from Saskatoon. I could always spot a couple people on those UA flights wearing Riders gear or some other Saskatchewan-related clothing

In any event, I guess AC has surrendered YWG-YXE to WestJet again, and it has all but done the same with YWG-YEG except Flair and Swoop are also in the mix there.

I end up doing YWG-YXE about once or twice a year. Usually try to schedule business meeting back to back in both cities.

When I use to live in YXE, I would use the flight to connect from YXE to Ottawa or Montreal. Far more convenient that using Toronto. Even WS in years past use to use YWG as to connect traffic from Regina and Saskatoon to from Ontario/Quebec.

From YXE going to the US the best option was always to connect in MSP. That said I could see some people connecting in YWG onto UA. These strong business ties between YXE and Chicago.

[Pinus]

Can someone please explain to me how the WAA is "corrupt"? It's being stated here by a few people but I don't fully understand their definition of "corruption".

[CoryB]

Originally Posted by Riverman

What? It was broken at Christmas!

The departures baggage belt would have changed to the "temporary" system sometime in the last two weeks. I saw the YWG post about the new flow before we left and the screening machines were in place but not hooked up and being used yet.

Originally Posted by kattiff

Intl passengers into Canada Customs are being held on the planes or in the hallways since it’s over capacity and their aren’t enough machines.

Seen it happen at the US preclearance, especially in the YVR connection area, and in YWG before. The US went first and eliminated paper customs declaration. You need to go to an ATM like terminal and answer questions on the screen, scan documents, etc. Problem is this is not a system the majority of the people are frequently exposed to leading to longer use times. Further, there are limited numbers of terminals available so it takes longer to process each person. The issue at YWG isn't so much Canada Customs need more physical space as it is they need more terminals, like double or even triple the general ones they have now. Due to lower demand and a slightly more experienced user group the Nexus side doesn't seem to be having the same issues. At least based on my recent trip through it where there was 2-3 planes worth of passengers queued for the normal machines and effectively no line at the Nexus side.

That said Nexus if $50 for five years...

[kattiff]

Originally Posted by Pinus

Can someone please explain to me how the WAA is "corrupt"? It's being stated here by a few people but I don't fully understand their definition of "corruption".

From what I have been told. The WAA are a bunch of mean dumb idiots.
They like to blame the airlines or certain departments in the terminal building for the issues that go on side the building. Example: Gates don’t work, the floors cracked, the belts are down, the basement STILL smells like a sewer. anything to not tarnish their name they like to point fingers at someone else even though it’s their building and everyone inside it pays rent for everything because of the “common use” concept.
the biggest thing is they love to cut costs. firing all the original airport duty managers (remember all the strikes at the airport) with like 20-30 years experience doing the airport functions to hire the the new airport mangers (one is from a Pizza Hut)
The latest is they want to get rid of the fire fighters who are trained for airplane fires (I think their station is by Kelly Western) and use the new airport managers to literally become fire fighters. I’m not joking either.
another cost cutting measure was to remove all the paper towels in the bathrooms at the airport as it was too much money to keep replacing.

one time a few years ago I was told the airport had a big gala supper for their empolyees and people in the city and province inside the gate area. They hired a chef from Chicago which in the end costs around 100,000. And they had all these gifts and the fancy pens alone was 10,000 not joking again here. They LOVE to spend money on the wrong things. As they claim they don’t have any.

They like to make up rules and not follow the book. My one friend in the building who knows some US Customs officers said how the WAA doesn’t ask permission on certain things and just go ahead and do it but where US Customs goes no no you need to ask like your dealing with a different government here. They assume they can do things as they are “airport gods” the WAA thinks.

Instead of working with the departments and airlines inside the building saying hey what do you need, what can we do to help you guys out to make life better... they chose to raise rent and say deal with it like a mean landlord who doesn’t fix the light bulb.

I know there is more issues with the WAA but this is all I can think of at the current time. I like having friends in the building so much info I hear lol

[bomberjet]

https://www.chrisd.ca/2019/03/14/aut...airport-video/

Meet Otto: Winnipeg Airport Utilizing First Autonomous Snowplow in North America

[YWG-RO]

Several 737 Max 8 planes will be parked at YWG indefinitely.

[esquire]

^ Maybe it'll become our version of the F28 boneyard at Saskatoon's airport!

[Rogie]

Flair's flights from YWG (and Edmonton) to Las Vegas, Phoenix-Mesa and Orlando are ending a month ahead of schedule, it's abandoning U.S. routes after April 1.

[Pinus]

Originally Posted by Rogie

Flair's flights from YWG (and Edmonton) to Las Vegas, Phoenix-Mesa and Orlando are ending a month ahead of schedule, it's abandoning U.S. routes after April 1.

Seriously though, I didn't expect this airline to really be a serious player in Canada, however I was hoping that I was wrong and that phat cat duopoly of AirWest CanadaJet would have some competition to finally help bring back fair pricing for Canadian passengers.

[CoryB]

I think there is definitely an opportunity for someone to launch a true ultra low cost carrier model in Canada. The problem is the start up costs are so high it prevents most people from even considering playing.

I think the biggest struggle Flair is facing right now is getting costs down a little further and growing its fleet so it is more consistent.

The other thing they need to do is crunch so hard numbers of the minimum cost per seat to operate some of these routes, like the Florida one, and aggressively discount unsold seats as the flight date starts getting closer. If they continue to pull slow selling routes it is going to be extremely hard to get anyone willing to do anything other than last minute tickets.

[bomberjet]

You need someone with deep pockets to sustain loses over a number of years. Like you said, seems nobody wants to play that game yet.