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Edmonton International Airport (EIA/YEG)

For the Westjet group seasonal or otherwise that will make 12 destination in the United States from YEG. A good example of their western strategy prioritizing the fact they are well liked and top dog in the Edmonton market paired with the fact US carriers have been reluctant/unable/unwilling to return service to our great airport.
 
Gronk! said:
From WestJet's news release

View attachment 518544
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Excellent news about the Atlanta connection, which plugs into the most important hub of WestJet's preferred U.S. partner Delta (not to mention the fact that Atlanta Hartsfield Jackson is the busiest airport in the U.S.A.) I was actually surprised when Atlanta service was announced for Winnipeg awhile back and not for Edmonton. Good to see this service is being initiated, now it's on us as a community to pack the planes and make it worthwhile for the airline. It's also good to see that the service is timed to arrive early enough in Georgia to make onward connections.

I see little to no value in the SFO connection. We really don't need WS mimicking something that is already being done by AC. The importance of the existing SFO route is that it feeds to and from the most important West Coast hub for AC's partner United. WestJet has nothing similar to offer in terms of connections there--they have an interline agreement with UA but nothing like the codeshare and FF relationship AC has.
 
Gronk! said:
I'm still waiting for nonstop flights between YEG and either London-LHR or London-LGW. Preferably the former since it has a tube.
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Ground connections aren't an issue for either LGW or LHR. Heathrow has the Piccadilly line and the overpriced Heathrow Express, as well as the relatively new Elizabeth Line which splits the difference. Trains run from Gatwick to Victoria station, which has excellent onward links and multiple Tube lines.

The UCP government's deal with WestJet still rankles. It was a sound business strategy for the airline to withdraw from competing directly for transatlantic business with AC (and others) at YYZ and to base WestJet's 787s in Alberta. But to concentrate all transatlantic services at YYC and give nothing to Edmonton was and is unacceptable. The provincial government should not be so blatantly favouring one Alberta international airport over the other.
 
MacLac said:
View attachment 518628

Don't want to look a gift horse in the mouth BUT these fares from WS's "SuperHub" just go to show the demand is that fragile. I wonder how their "Business plan" of flying TO businessmen to YYC to catch flights to Europe is working out for them? Oh wait a minute, it isn't.....
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These are bare-bones, carry-on only, one-way fares. They are relatively meaningless because virtually no one is going to fly to Europe from Alberta with only carry-on luggage. Once you start adding a checked bag and other services many people who fly long-haul will need, the price escalates. It's not that demand is weak, it's the fact that these are typical "teaser" fares that are of little to no use to the average traveler on a given route.

I always laugh at basic economy "hand baggage only" fares between North America and Europe. It makes sense to fly hand baggage only if you're traveling between, say, London and Zurich for three days for business. But people flying across the Atlantic for a vacation aren't going to live out of a carry-on for two weeks.
 
TravellingChris said:
Ground connections aren't an issue for either LGW or LHR. Heathrow has the Piccadilly line and the overpriced Heathrow Express, as well as the relatively new Elizabeth Line which splits the difference. Trains run from Gatwick to Victoria station, which has excellent onward links and multiple Tube lines.

The UCP government's deal with WestJet still rankles. It was a sound business strategy for the airline to withdraw from competing directly for transatlantic business with AC (and others) at YYZ and to base WestJet's 787s in Alberta. But to concentrate all transatlantic services at YYC and give nothing to Edmonton was and is unacceptable. The provincial government should not be so blatantly favouring one Alberta international airport over the other.
Click to expand...

Did the GoA say all transatlantic flights need to be out of Calgary? It does seem odd to not have at least 3X weekly for London from Westjet out of Edmonton at this point.
 
Oilers99 said:
Did the GoA say all transatlantic flights need to be out of Calgary? It does seem odd to not have at least 3X weekly for London from Westjet out of Edmonton at this point.
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The deal was to base all the Dreamliners at YYC and concentrate WestJet's transatlantic and transpacific routes in Calgary.

Apparently WS is achieving some success, particularly with the Paris route, in capturing U.S. connecting traffic to Europe. But I still think it's a missed opportunity not doing a London flight out of both YEG and YWG, each of which had WS service to Gatwick at one point. The GoA should have insisted that at least one Dreamliner be based at EIA in order to provide additional connectivity here--Edmonton is also apparently located in Alberta.

WestJet is still maintaining a solid Caribbean business at YYZ--they recently announced Canada's only non-stop service to Bonaire. But they've recognized that they can't compete with the superior array of European carriers at Pearson, including Air France, British Airways, KLM, SAS Scandinavian, Lufthansa, LOT and TAP Portugal.
 
TravellingChris said:
The deal was to base all the Dreamliners at YYC and concentrate WestJet's transatlantic and transpacific routes in Calgary.

Apparently WS is achieving some success, particularly with the Paris route, in capturing U.S. connecting traffic to Europe. But I still think it's a missed opportunity not doing a London flight out of both YEG and YWG, each of which had WS service to Gatwick at one point. The GoA should have insisted that at least one Dreamliner be based at EIA in order to provide additional connectivity here--Edmonton is also apparently located in Alberta.

WestJet is still maintaining a solid Caribbean business at YYZ--they recently announced Canada's only non-stop service to Bonaire. But they've recognized that they can't compete with the superior array of European carriers at Pearson, including Air France, British Airways, KLM, SAS Scandinavian, Lufthansa, LOT and TAP Portugal.
Click to expand...

Well hopefully they bring it back. I think a London flight even 3X weekly would be pretty heavily used from Edmonton.
 
YEG scoring an ATL daily flight is amazing news and a huge win for our airport. US preclearance currently operates 430AM-630PM so they’ll need to extend their hours, unless they expect people to show up 6 hours before their flight.

Also thinking Flair drops their Nashville flight before next spring. WS 2x weekly are the exact same days as Flair within hours of each other.
 
Westendyeg said:
YEG scoring an ATL daily flight is amazing news and a huge win for our airport. US preclearance currently operates 430AM-630PM so they’ll need to extend their hours, unless they expect people to show up 6 hours before their flight.

Also thinking Flair drops their Nashville flight before next spring. WS 2x weekly are the exact same days as Flair within hours of each other.
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unfortunately it’s not a given that preclearanxe will remain open. I believe there was previously an evening flight (Houston?) that operated out of Domestic/international gates previously.
 
Westendyeg said:
YEG scoring an ATL daily flight is amazing news and a huge win for our airport. US preclearance currently operates 430AM-630PM so they’ll need to extend their hours, unless they expect people to show up 6 hours before their flight.

Also thinking Flair drops their Nashville flight before next spring. WS 2x weekly are the exact same days as Flair within hours of each other.
Click to expand...
Flair Nashville has a split summer season with flights resuming into the fall. We'll see if that sticks.
 
Probably the biggest news day for EIA in awhile. Really excited to have all these flights coming online, although the SFO route is still a head scratcher for me. Air Canada serves that route and seems to be doing quite well overall, so not sure what Westjet's angle is here? I can at least see some merit in the Nashville route.

Atlanta is a huge W. To have daily flights to the busiest airport in the United States will open up so many options for Edmontonians and communities close to us. I really, really hope this route see's major success.

We need Chicago and JFK though. If we can get those two routes, we can say we're relatively well serviced to the States.
 
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