Region of Waterloo International Airport - YKF

[danbrotherston]

I think the Air Canada bus makes a lot of sense from CYKF.  Particularly because AC treats it like a flight in a lot of their internal systems.  But also because it’s a convenient place for the people likely to take this bus (people that want to drive to an easy to park location without fighting significant traffic).

But it’s an interesting thing because it probably makes it less likely to attract commercial flights.  A bunch of the people that want to avoid driving to Pearson now get to avoid that and still keep access to the large selection of flights there.

I go back and forth, but I really don’t think CYKF is going to succeed for commercial traffic until a lot of things change: airport infrastructure, transit network, more congestion at Pearson, a new low cost carrier arrives, etc.

I find that parking at YKF is actually more pricey than various options for parking at Pearson (e.g. park4u), though there is the traffic and protection from misconnect benefits. Taking a taxi to YKF is a lot cheaper.

Yes to being less likely to attract commercial flights, though I can't see any way that AC would fly to all of YTZ, YYZ, YHM, and then YKF as well. And, for me, I have managed to avoid low cost carriers for the past while, though a lot of people do take them.

Yeah, AC does consider it a leg of their flight, but the benefits pretty much end there. There is no through connection of baggage, no through connection of security, no through connection of ticketing. Nothing.

There is zero reason that the bus should go to the airport. Yes, YKF is more convenient than Pearson, but it is less convenient than virtually every other location within the region of Waterloo. It's inaccessible by further transit, it's relatively expensive to park at, it's relatively remote and not that well connected to the road network. It's on the wrong side of the river.

The ONLY reason you'd go to the airport is to connect to other flights and there are zero destinations available through YKF that aren't available at Pearson.

AC routing the bus to the airport is just an incredibly obviously bad decision that only arises because it's an airline and is "airplane brained" in the same way most people are car brained.

But I agree with the general sentiment. The region continues to invest huge sums of money into YKF and has nothing to show for it.