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Region of Waterloo International Airport - YKF
Sunwing will have 2 flights weekly from YKF starting next winter... Punta Cana and Cancun.

Coke
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(05-13-2019, 01:37 PM)Coke6pk Wrote: Sunwing will have 2 flights weekly from YKF starting next winter... Punta Cana and Cancun.

Coke

That's awesome. Now if we could get Orlando. That would be great!!!

I saw a billboard add for Swoop on Victoria street Flying from London to various locations. When are people going to start recognizing that we are a bigger city now than London and Hamilton. We want our own destinations. Not going to London. Wasted advertising.
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You just have to convince Swoop to put some planes here..... no idea why WestJet (and by default, their sister Swoop) refuse to add extra legs here.

Coke
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(05-13-2019, 01:37 PM)Coke6pk Wrote: Sunwing will have 2 flights weekly from YKF starting next winter... Punta Cana and Cancun.

Coke

Next winter as in 6-7 months from now? This is amazing news and will make our travels to Cozumel that much easier!

*edit: It is this winter, the Cancun flight appears to be leaving/returning on Wednesdays. Not ideal, but better than schlepping through Pearson.
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(05-13-2019, 03:51 PM)Section ThirtyOne Wrote:
(05-13-2019, 01:37 PM)Coke6pk Wrote: Sunwing will have 2 flights weekly from YKF starting next winter... Punta Cana and Cancun.

Coke

Next winter as in 6-7 months from now? This is amazing news and will make our travels to Cozumel that much easier!

*edit: It is this winter, the Cancun flight appears to be leaving/returning on Wednesdays. Not ideal, but better than schlepping through Pearson.

I wonder why they're going Wednesdays, a weekend flight would seem to make far more sense.
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(05-13-2019, 04:39 PM)danbrotherston Wrote:
(05-13-2019, 03:51 PM)Section ThirtyOne Wrote: Next winter as in 6-7 months from now? This is amazing news and will make our travels to Cozumel that much easier!

*edit: It is this winter, the Cancun flight appears to be leaving/returning on Wednesdays. Not ideal, but better than schlepping through Pearson.

I wonder why they're going Wednesdays, a weekend flight would seem to make far more sense.

The website doesn't show a flight number or flight time, i'm hoping it's just a placeholder!

But it probably isn't, so I won't get my hopes up.
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(05-13-2019, 01:37 PM)Coke6pk Wrote: Sunwing will have 2 flights weekly from YKF starting next winter... Punta Cana and Cancun.

Coke

I wonder if other airlines will offer flights from YKF this year.

I noticed that Jetlines no longer shows its proposed flight map and there is no mention of using Hamilton as a hub.  I suppose it's possible they are still looking at Kitchener.  Last year, Flair Airlines moved out of Hamilton as soon as they found out that Swoop (WestJet's low cost carrier) would operate out of Hamilton.  Flair had potential but they obviously can't compete with an airline that has deep pockets.  It would appear that Jetlines reached the same conclusion.  But they need a hub in Southern Ontario and I suspect that YKF's offer to guarantee routes for a couple of years is starting to look appealing.  One of the flights Flair offered from Hamilton was to Cancun.    Now that route is taken by Sunwing.  Jetlines is planning on a launch in time for winter travel so I wouldn't be surprised if they decide to fly out of YKF.  There are some drawbacks though.  Jetlines wants to serve the greater Toronto area but there is limited transportation to and from Toronto to Breslau.  There was talk of a GO station at Breslau and that would help.  Bus service to Toronto would also help.  Because Jetlines is a ULCC I can't see too many passengers taking a taxi to Toronto. Regardless, I hope YKF will offer more flights.
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(05-13-2019, 01:49 PM)Rainrider22 Wrote:
(05-13-2019, 01:37 PM)Coke6pk Wrote: Sunwing will have 2 flights weekly from YKF starting next winter... Punta Cana and Cancun.

Coke

That's awesome. Now if we could get Orlando. That would be great!!!

I saw a billboard add for Swoop on Victoria street Flying from London to various locations. When are people going to start recognizing that we are a bigger city now than London and Hamilton. We want our own destinations. Not going to London. Wasted advertising.

As soon as people in the "quad" (that is, Kitchener, Guelph, Cambridge and Waterloo) start to figure out that we have an airport.

For what it's worth, too, Hamilton has a larger area to pull from, and London is far away from other airports, so they have that. We can get to Mississauga (Pearson) real quickly, 45 minutes most times (407 ETR for sure).

Of course, they need to market the airport a little more. And obviously, try to sway airlines to fly out of here.
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(06-23-2019, 10:58 PM)jeffster Wrote:
(05-13-2019, 01:49 PM)Rainrider22 Wrote: That's awesome. Now if we could get Orlando. That would be great!!!

I saw a billboard add for Swoop on Victoria street Flying from London to various locations. When are people going to start recognizing that we are a bigger city now than London and Hamilton. We want our own destinations. Not going to London. Wasted advertising.


Of course, they need to market the airport a little more. And obviously, try to sway airlines to fly out of here.

This is one of the biggest issues. It is not cheap to operate an airline so swaying them to set up operations from another hub is a lot of work.

Also, getting to YKF is annoying. It's way out in the middle of nowhere with absolutely no way to get there besides car or shuttle. There are no buses nor trains. It's unappealing for travelers, including those who might be flying into YKF. You get to Waterloo Region, and then what? There is really nothing to do here...maybe you could fill a weekend up, but it's still a pretty boring city.

Given some time, I'm sure the airport traffic will increase. But it'll take an improvement in regards to how people can get there. Also, advertising the airport would be useful, as would negotiating with airlines by offering them time and space to fly routes in and out of YKF (compared to Pearson, which is really busy and congested for the actual airplanes that could be a way to bargain with them).
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(06-26-2019, 07:53 AM)ac3r Wrote:
(06-23-2019, 10:58 PM)jeffster Wrote: Of course, they need to market the airport a little more. And obviously, try to sway airlines to fly out of here.

This is one of the biggest issues. It is not cheap to operate an airline so swaying them to set up operations from another hub is a lot of work.

Also, getting to YKF is annoying. It's way out in the middle of nowhere with absolutely no way to get there besides car or shuttle. There are no buses nor trains. It's unappealing for travelers, including those who might be flying into YKF. You get to Waterloo Region, and then what? There is really nothing to do here...maybe you could fill a weekend up, but it's still a pretty boring city.

Given some time, I'm sure the airport traffic will increase. But it'll take an improvement in regards to how people can get there. Also, advertising the airport would be useful, as would negotiating with airlines by offering them time and space to fly routes in and out of YKF (compared to Pearson, which is really busy and congested for the actual airplanes that could be a way to bargain with them).

You are also describing London's airport.

I mean, unless they live around here, or are visiting people who do.

I really don't think so.  From KW, YKF is vastly easier to get too than Pearson, and don't even talk about parking, vastly cheaper at YKF.  And the region has already made very very generous offers to other airlines, at some point we were even paying for empty seats (which there weren't many of actually).
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It's a catch-22. Accessibility to the airport is poor because there are too few flights; new flights aren't coming because accessibility is poor. And so on.
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Another round of consultations and feedback...  

Waterloo Region asking for feedback on $375-million airport master plan
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(06-26-2019, 12:43 PM)KevinL Wrote: It's a catch-22. Accessibility to the airport is poor because there are too few flights; new flights aren't coming because accessibility is poor. And so on.

I don't think this is true. I believe a bunch of the flights that were cancelled had high seat occupancy. It was just the overall economics of the route that made it not worthwhile for these companies. I believe the AA flight to Chicago was heavily used - but AA found a more profitable route in the US driven in large part by the poor Canadian -> US exchange rate. I also believe the Ottawa flight was cancelled because of the economics on the Ottawa end and not here.

I like the general approach of the Master plan -> Laying out what they want to do to expand and tying it to passenger numbers. But I'm not sure if there's been a good public explanation* for what the main road blocks are to getting more flights here. My intuition though is that its not really about facilities, runways, or other things covered in the master plan (at least, not yet).


* If there has been, I'd love to read it.
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(07-05-2019, 09:55 AM)SammyOES Wrote:
(06-26-2019, 12:43 PM)KevinL Wrote: It's a catch-22. Accessibility to the airport is poor because there are too few flights; new flights aren't coming because accessibility is poor. And so on.

I don't think this is true.  I believe a bunch of the flights that were cancelled had high seat occupancy.  It was just the overall economics of the route that made it not worthwhile for these companies.  I believe the AA flight to Chicago was heavily used - but AA found a more profitable route in the US driven in large part by the poor Canadian -> US exchange rate.  I also believe the Ottawa flight was cancelled because of the economics on the Ottawa end and not here.

I like the general approach of the Master plan -> Laying out what they want to do to expand and tying it to passenger numbers.  But I'm not sure if there's been a good public explanation* for what the main road blocks are to getting more flights here.  My intuition though is that its not really about facilities, runways, or other things covered in the master plan (at least, not yet).


* If there has been, I'd love to read it.

AA was OVERSOLD almost every flight.  There is a demand for service.

Swoop (because of its mother company WestJet) is loyal to Hamilton.  YHM was their Ontario hub before they were forced to move into YYZ.  YHM will ALWAYS get WestJet/Swoop flights before us.  London is getting some bones thrown at them as their next best option is 2 hrs away... We have 3 airports within a 1 hr drive to get those flights... so why saturate the market with more at YKF.  [This rings true ONLY for WestJet/Swoop]

The other discount airline is Flair (WestJet bullied them out of YHM, now they fly out of YYZ).  I think Flair would like to move here... but with their old livery, our runways are too short.  We need more passengers to get our runways expanded.  If Flair upgrades to newer equipment, they could fly out of here, and I think they would prefer to.

Canada Jetlines and EnerJet are the ULCC's that still are not off the ground.  Those are the best hopes of getting new flights into YKF.

Coke
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(07-05-2019, 02:54 PM)Coke6pk Wrote: The other discount airline is Flair (WestJet bullied them out of YHM, now they fly out of YYZ).  I think Flair would like to move here... but with their old livery, our runways are too short.  We need more passengers to get our runways expanded.  If Flair upgrades to newer equipment, they could fly out of here, and I think they would prefer to.

Canada Jetlines and EnerJet are the ULCC's that still are not off the ground.  Those are the best hopes of getting new flights into YKF.

Coke


Interesting about Flair. I guess I'd be inclined to support [of course, my support means nothing Smile ] a runway expansion to bring an airline like Flair to Waterloo IF there was a clause that caused Flair to reimburse the region if they didn't meet some minimum threshold of traffic over some set time. But otherwise it just seems like a relatively big risk given past patterns to invest a ton of money enticing airlines to come here.
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