Quote:
Originally Posted by bizaro86
I do think completely unserved regional flights may come back once the regional partners are able to hire more pilots.
Westjet/AC are likely to leave the country divided up though, since they'll both make more money by doing so.
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I also think part of the problem is the fact there aren't any 40-50 seat aircraft anymore.
Sydney-Halifax used to have 4-5 daily flights. Serviced well by the Dash 8-100s then -300s.
It allowed for people to make the trek to Halifax for appointments and such, if booked far enough in advance you'd save the 8+ hours driving return.
Connections were great at Halifax. You could connect and get to or from at a decent hour.
The 76 seat Q400 is juuuust too big. Pre-COVID (I think my timing might be off) the Halifax runs were dropped to 2-3 times a day.
The amount of seats was about the same but timing for connections was reduced. Which, I believe, reduced demand.
Now you can fly direct to Toronto as you always could. That's a 6:00am departure to YYZ, and the return flight arrives at 1:30am.
Or fly directly to Montreal, flight arrives at 4:00pm and departs at 4:35
During the summer there's a second Toronto flight arrives at 5:10 and departs at 6:00.
Summer isn't as bad, but when that afternoon Toronto flight goes away, connecting at YYZ or YUL means losing sleep.