Region of Waterloo International Airport - YKF

[DHLawrence]

They want to do the same with Peterborough. He calls it a "taxi service" in the Peterborough Examiner article.

http://www.thepeterboroughexaminer.com/2...gh-airport

Porter might see this as being in their best interests. Right now flying out of the Island Airport is difficult for Waterloo and Kawartha residents because of the logistics of getting there. This will be a perfect feeder service, albeit expensive for most.

[panamaniac]

An article in yesterday's National Post mentions Kitchener, along with Vancouver, Winnipeg and Hamilton, as a place where Jetlines plans to establish a base of operations.  I knew about the other three locations, but Kitchener was a surprise to me.  Is that new information, or did I just miss it previously?  A direct flight to Winnipeg and Vancouver would be sweet, if Jetlines ever actually gets off the ground (so to speak).

http://news.nationalpost.com/full-commen...ship-rules

[Coke6pk]

Looking north east from the new control tower.

   

Coke

[Canard]

Beautiful day to be up there! Great shot!

[pmsilva]

Beautiful day to be up there!  Great shot!

Awesome shot, How did you get access to there?

[timio]

Another one bites the dust, at least temporarily:  American Airlines pulls twice-daily flights to Chicago from local airport

American Airlines announced they will suspend service to Chicago from the region's local airport, citing the low Canadian dollar.

The twice-daily flights to Chicago O'Hare and the Region of Waterloo International Airport will end effective Oct. 5.

"There's nothing wrong with the service at the airport. ... The (passenger) load factor is really good and met their standards, but it didn't meet their profitability," said Coun. Tom Galloway.

The Region of Waterloo was informed of the change in service last Thursday, he said.

[Canard]

Really unfortunate - we have a ton of customers in the Chicago area and our guys made good use of that flight for installs and service.

[SammyOES]

This is a pretty huge blow. Especially because the planes did seem to have good passenger loads and the reason given will apply to a lot of other airlines the region would want to try and attract.

[rangersfan]

This is one of or is the main flight to and from the airport. This is really unfortunate. A couple years ago the company I was working for constantly used this route for employees.

[jgsz]

This is very disappointing.  So what's next?

Will the Region subsidize another airline to fly out of YKF?  I think many residents would be opposed to that idea.

I'm hoping business leaders, academics and politicians can get together to discuss their YKF needs and to develop strategies to make it happen.

Perhaps a small startup like NextJet (are they still flying??) can be nurtured so it can offer flights to some Canadian and American cities.

[panamaniac]

New Leaf is supposed to start flying from a number of underserved airports next month, including Hamilton. Maybe we'll get lucky and they'll eventually add YKF. That won't help those wanting to fly to the USA, however.

[Coke6pk]

This is a pretty huge blow.  Especially because the planes did seem to have good passenger loads and the reason given will apply to a lot of other airlines the region would want to try and attract.

This is very disappointing.  So what's next?

Will the Region subsidize another airline to fly out of YKF?  I think many residents would be opposed to that idea.

I'm hoping business leaders, academics and politicians can get together to discuss their YKF needs and to develop strategies to make it happen.

Perhaps a small startup like NextJet (are they still flying??) can be nurtured so it can offer flights to some Canadian and American cities.

I don't know why residents would be opposed to a subsidy if we got another airline in... The money paid to AA was a refund of airport fees... so if they never flew in, we would never of earned that money in the first place.  Instead, we got benefits to the local economy, and once the 2 year period elapsed, we started collecting the fees.  I'd say its a win-win.

Flights are near full, so I'm surprised by this decision.  If it is the Canadian dollar at fault, then why are they keeping YYZ over YKF?  Airline industry is so frustrating!

Coke

[jamincan]

I guess the question for AA was whether they were improving their market share into and out of Kitchener with the direct flight. My guess is that most people flying AA out of Kitchener would have probably flown them out of YYZ instead if the flight into Kitchener wasn't available.

[SammyOES]

I guess the question for AA was whether they were improving their market share into and out of Kitchener with the direct flight. My guess is that most people flying AA out of Kitchener would have probably flown them out of YYZ instead if the flight into Kitchener wasn't available.

I suspect this isn't true. I always fly Air Canada (or other Star Alliance airline if really necessary) out of YYZ (assuming cost are relatively close). I think there are lots of people that have AA as their non-first choice airline that were flying them because Waterloo is so convenient.

It probably just a money decision. The exchange rate obviously hurt their bottom line enough to make another alternate route more profitable.

[kps]

A large fraction of my flights are with AA because they serve Canada and the US airport I usually fly to, but I've never flown from YKF because the prices have always been substantially higher than YYZ plus transportation/parking there. Either YKF seats were in high demand, or AA is dumb.