Region of Waterloo International Airport - YKF

[SammyOES2]

To be honest, the route map is not inspiring. A direct YKF-OAK route is something that would have my co-workers on every available flight, and I'd personally use for a few times a year for pleasure as well. YKF-YVR-OAK, maybe; it's a bit indirect. YKF-YWG-YVR-OAK? Are you freakin' kidding? Toronto isn't that far away.

A well-timed YKF to the nearby hub of a US carrier (cough Southwest at MDW cough) would work, though.

Even going to a nearby hub isn't all that useful if there are no agreements in place between airlines.

I consider a direct flight from Toronto to be roughly equivalent to a one-connection flight from Waterloo all else being equal. But if that connection is with a completely different airline, I'm almost never choosing it as an option. I either need to leave a really large safety margin for connection time or I have to risk a delay on one carrier resulting in a huge pain in the butt on another carrier - including the possibility of paying hundreds of dollars in extra costs.

It seems to me (and obviously these guys probably know more than me) that you'd have better luck starting with short-medium direct flights that have enough value w/o worrying about connections. Chicago, direct flights to sun spots like Orlando, Ottawa and possibly places like NYC, Boston, Raleigh, Washington, Montreal, Silicon Valley(?), etc.