Region of Waterloo International Airport - YKF

[ijmorlan]

Airports can't practically mandate aircraft sizes.

Fortunately, there is absolutely no reason why they should. Auctioning off the landing slots will do the trick. If some rich guy wants to occasionally pay a king’s ransom to land a 2-seat plane at rush hour, fine. Most of the time, large jets will be landing, spreading their landing slot fee amongst hundreds of passengers.

It’s for the same reason that I think HOV and HOT lanes are nonsense. Just put a congestion charge on the highway and let people decide whether they want to pay the congestion charge all by themselves or split it with one or more carpoolers. This also avoids the road design complexity of having special lanes.

[tomh009]

Air traffic control is extremely cautious and conservative in moving to new technology. ATC has been a bottleneck in the tri-state (think NYC) area for decades, causing persistent delays and cancellations. But we are still 10 years (or so) away from even starting to break apart that logjam.

[jamincan]

You will notice that the GTAA master plan is predicting passenger volume to double over the next 20 years, but plane movements to only increase 40% or so. I'm sure they're already accounting for bigger planes and spreading traffic out throughout the day more.

It's kind of funny to me that so many people feel the free market will solve traffic woes, but not other social problems. Evidence from Heathrow is that airlines will gladly sit on unused landing slots. Even with policies in place forcing them to use them, they will fly empty planes that passengers can't even book a seat on just to keep a slot. They're that valuable.

Airports use massive quantities of land. It's therefore in the public's best interest to make sure that we maximize their utilization. This is not something you want to leave for the free market to sort out.

[SammyOES]

You will notice that the GTAA master plan is predicting passenger volume to double over the next 20 years, but plane movements to only increase 40% or so. I'm sure they're already accounting for bigger planes and spreading traffic out throughout the day more.

I'm curious (genuinely, this isn't a trick question), what has their history of success been in predicting growth?

It's kind of funny to me that so many people feel the free market will solve traffic woes, but not other social problems.

I believe the free market is the best way to solve problems when everyone's incentives are aligned and costs/benefits are well understood and accounted for by everyone (this is obviously a huge simplification - but hopefully enough for this topic). Most social issues have very poorly aligned incentives. Healthcare for example with private practitioners/insurers is a bad place for the free market because "optimizing profits" and "optimizing health of a population" are very different things.

My previous comment by the way, doesn't mean that I think we need a purely free market solution. You can still add regulations to keep incentives aligned properly. A large fee for an idle gate or low capacity or more drastic measures like "use it or lose it" can help here. Obviously an airline would choose to maximize their profits over the general benefit of the airport and its user base - but it seems easy enough to prevent that.

[jamincan]

You will notice that the GTAA master plan is predicting passenger volume to double over the next 20 years, but plane movements to only increase 40% or so. I'm sure they're already accounting for bigger planes and spreading traffic out throughout the day more.

I'm curious (genuinely, this isn't a trick question), what has their history of success been in predicting growth?

It's kind of funny to me that so many people feel the free market will solve traffic woes, but not other social problems.

I believe the free market is the best way to solve problems when everyone's incentives are aligned and costs/benefits are well understood and accounted for by everyone (this is obviously a huge simplification - but hopefully enough for this topic).  Most social issues have very poorly aligned incentives.  Healthcare for example with private practitioners/insurers is a bad place for the free market because "optimizing profits" and "optimizing health of a population" are very different things.

My previous comment by the way, doesn't mean that I think we need a purely free market solution.  You can still add regulations to keep incentives aligned properly.  A large fee for an idle gate or low capacity or more drastic measures like "use it or lose it" can help here.  Obviously an airline would choose to maximize their profits over the general benefit of the airport and its user base - but it seems easy enough to prevent that.

Restrictions like that work to a certain extent, but when availability is constrained, eventually the slot itself has value, rather than what it represents and then all logic goes out the window and you have airlines flying empty planes to an airport just to hold onto a slot. (I realize this isn't an endemic issue, but it's just the most stark example I know). It's sort of a similar situation to real estate.

As to GTAA growth predictions, I don't think they've been so good in the past. The 2008 master plan was predicting much greater growth on smaller planes, and hence had far more terminal growth planned. They ended up not carrying forward most of that expansion when it was clear that the nature of growth was far different than expected. It kind of goes to show how the whole planning process for an airport is somewhat fraught. If the primary tenant of the airport changes tack, the entire plan goes out the window.

[ijmorlan]

Restrictions like that work to a certain extent, but when availability is constrained, eventually the slot itself has value, rather than what it represents and then all logic goes out the window and you have airlines flying empty planes to an airport just to hold onto a slot. (I realize this isn't an endemic issue, but it's just the most stark example I know). It's sort of a similar situation to real estate.

I’m suspicious of the empty planes. If they have to use the slot to keep it, they don’t really own it, do they? Which in turn suggests that there are complicated rules, rather than simple auctioning of slots, in operation. Also, why should incumbent operators get to hold on to historical slots, even if they are using them? If somebody else can outbid them, it suggests that it may be because they can provide more customer value using the slot than the incumbent can.

[jamincan]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...throw.html

[YKF]

Highlights of WestJet's 2019 summer schedule include:
CALGARY

• Calgary-Houston, from 12 weekly flights to 13 weekly flights.
  
  
• Calgary-London (Gatwick), adding two weekly flights with daily 787 Dreamliner service.
  
  
• Calgary-Orlando, from once weekly to twice weekly.
  
  
• Calgary-Phoenix, will double service from once daily to twice daily.
  
  
• Calgary-Puerto Vallarta, from three times weekly to four times weekly.
  
  
• Calgary-San Diego, from three times weekly to four times weekly.
  
  
• Calgary-San Francisco, will double service from once daily to twice daily.
  
  
• Calgary-Kitchener, from seven weekly flights to eight weekly flights.
  
  

Source: http://westjet.mediaroom.com/2019-01-28-...r-schedule

[Spokes]

Every little bit counts!

[bgb_ca]

Now if only they had one that went East to Halifax...

[YKF]

Every little bit counts!

Absolutely! At the very least, it signals Westjet's confidence in the market here and suggests that the YYC-YKF route is profitable.

[Spokes]

Now if only they had one that went East to Halifax...

Yes!!!

[panamaniac]

Now if only they had one that went East to Halifax...

Even better (for me) if it were a direct flight via YOW.

[clasher]

Now if only they had one that went East to Halifax...

We could fly Kitchener to Paris, France then!

[panamaniac]

Now if only they had one that went East to Halifax...

We could fly Kitchener to Paris, France then!

Not to mention London, Reykjavik, Dublin, Glasgow, and Frankfurt.