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Originally Posted by Bigtime
In other news I am somewhat ticked that Icelandair announced service to YEG this week (4x weekly starting next year).
Definitely a case of tapping into an under-served YEG-Europe market, but it is little things like this that can chip away at what we are building here in YYC, and the CAA and board should be on top of these things and work to minimize the impact it could have on passenger numbers here.
Bright spots on the horizon are the almost all but guaranteed AC YYC-PEK route (once they have the metal for it) and another mystery Asia flight that will stop in YEG as part of the routing to us.
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That is part of there plan, find under served markets and build up a good following. It is one of the reasons they went after Halifax instead of Montreal years ago, they felt they couldn't compete with Transat for the traffic. The last time I looked at the numbers Icelandair had about 75% transit passengers, most others just stayed in Iceland for under 3 days. It is interesting the Canadian government is giving them wide access to our country (up to 4 cities) while the gulf carriers have gone no where in years. I know Emirates and GTAA have had talks with Government in August to get answers; if one transit carrier is fine, why isn't the other.
Aeromexico had talks with YYC at the start of the year, now I doubt anything will happen as I don't think the demand was there, plus they would have to shift slots in Mexico city because they are slot constrained. But in a year or two it is something that definitely has potential.
The Mexican government also wants its citizens to be able to transit in Canada with no transit visa (similar to which many Asian countries can do if they end up in the US), in Mexico's case they want Mexicans to be able to transfer in Canada visa free if there end destination is select Europe and Asian countries.