Calgary International Airport - New Terminal, Runway, Control Tower

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Lots of hard rock mining in the area. I'm not sure what part of that would drive air traffic, but they wouldn't be wasting money on it if there weren't a reason. Related to the major projects office opening in Calgary? Just searching mines shows several offices in town. Maybe?

For sure I assume that their market research is very good, as this would be super expensive/intensive to setup. More pointing out my ignorance. The mining angle is an interesting one! I wonder if we have lots of generic industrial service companies because of the energy sector that also serve mining?

[Arsenal14]

Originally Posted by Bill Bumface

I had to look at a map to find out where North Bay is. Where are the people coming from to fill up a plane twice a week? Tourists flocking to Algonquin Provincial Park when they get sick of the mountains over here?

I'm not sure if there is enough demand to support it, but I'm personally happy about it. My wife's family is all in Huntsville so North Bay would be the closest airport and would save flying to Toronto and driving through that mess of traffic. But I would guess Algonquin/Muskoka are the main draw. There's probably people here who are from Ontario and still have places in "cottage country".

[bizaro86]

Westjet swaps an existing order for six 737 max for two 787s.

Existing fleet plus firm orders is now 16 dreamliners. Hopefully they all end up out of YYC, although if so that'll be a huge amount of international capacity here.

[Acey]

They'll have to spread them out a bit, some flying out of Edmonton, Vancouver, Toronto.

You can only park twelve 787's at the international terminal, and that means no other planes at all. Obviously all 16 planes wouldn't be on gates at the same time but all of those planes here daily would be a logistical nightmare. They'd also need more hangar space among other things.

[Hemi-Cuda]

Bit of an odd question, but does anyone know if they have those packing film stations at the airport for wrapping boxes? We're headed to Vietnam on Monday to see the wife's family, and she's got 3 big boxes of stuff to take over. Just wondering if I can save myself some trouble if they have something handy or if I need to buy a few extra rolls of packing tape

[Fuzz]

Staples has the plastic wrap in reasonable size rolls, if you are looking to buy it.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by Acey

They'll have to spread them out a bit, some flying out of Edmonton, Vancouver, Toronto.

You can only park twelve 787's at the international terminal, and that means no other planes at all. Obviously all 16 planes wouldn't be on gates at the same time but all of those planes here daily would be a logistical nightmare. They'd also need more hangar space among other things.

I hope they do a few in Vancouver for places you can't get to from here (Eg, Australia, Singapore). E=NG so forget that. And I wouldn't be surprised if their "unwritten but adhered to" understanding with Air Canada doesn't permit them to fly 787s out of YYZ. Maybe one YYZ to London or something like that if they could get slots on the other end.

I feel like two planes per spot (one afternoon/one evening) would be pretty doable from a gate perspective, do you agree? Maybe even have a morning flight to a sun destination in the winter.

I think the airport would have enough land for them to build another hangar if they wanted to/were willing to pay for it?

[Ryan Coke]

The current plan is to have them “based” in YYC, but that is primarily that the pilot base is here. I would expect that with 16 machines that there will be routes touching other Canadian cities, even if the planes are based in YYC.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by Ryan Coke

The current plan is to have them “based” in YYC, but that is primarily that the pilot base is here. I would expect that with 16 machines that there will be routes touching other Canadian cities, even if the planes are based in YYC.

"Based" meaning pilot base is pretty inside baseball. If they fly them on triangle routes (eg YYC-LHR-YYZ-LHR-YYC no customers are going to view that as a Calgary route.

If they run them on transcons to reposition to other places (eg YYC-YYZ-LHR) at least we get those domestic flights on the widebody which is nice.

[Acey]

Air Canada operates a 787 flight from here to London every day. It is operated by Vancouver-based pilots who deadhead in. Repositioning crews (and not the entire airplane) remains an option for WestJet.

[Hemi-Cuda]

Well you can definitely tell travel to the US is down. We're transferring through Seattle on the way to Hanoi, and the international terminal is dead. Zero lineup at security or US customs, and hardly anyone else past that. Big difference compared to a year ago when I went to Vegas. I wonder how the restaurants and shops are going to fare on the international side if this keeps up

[marsplasticeraser]

Originally Posted by Hemi-Cuda

Well you can definitely tell travel to the US is down. We're transferring through Seattle on the way to Hanoi, and the international terminal is dead. Zero lineup at security or US customs, and hardly anyone else past that. Big difference compared to a year ago when I went to Vegas. I wonder how the restaurants and shops are going to fare on the international side if this keeps up

It’s wild how pretty much all cheap flights overseas now have a connection in the USA. It’s often $200+ cheaper to go via the us now.

[Hemi-Cuda]

Originally Posted by marsplasticeraser

It’s wild how pretty much all cheap flights overseas now have a connection in the USA. It’s often $200+ cheaper to go via the us now.

Only reason why we went through Seattle instead of Van, with the 4 of us it was over $1000 cheaper. I was a little worried, but had no issues in the end. The US customs guy even let the apples my wife threw in our carry on slide. We had a spirited argument about fruit going through the US, glad I won it without paying a nasty fine