Region of Waterloo International Airport - YKF

[tomh009]

Scheduled for ... next year?

[Coke6pk]

Sunwing was last week of December to March / Early April.

I highly doubt the border will be open then... however, I just looked at the Sunwing site, and they are selling seats from Kitchener... so who knows.....

Coke

[panamaniac]

Easier to sell tickets and cancel the flight, no?

[jeffster]

YKF was Canada's busiest airport in November:

https://www.kitchenertoday.com/local-new...er-3306060

This of course is air traffic, not passengers. Regardless, that's a lot of movements, and for the flight controllers, a lot of work.

[robdrimmie]

The Record article (paywalled) elaborates a bit. The traffic isn't unusual for YKF, the difference is that it was so low everywhere else.

“This isn’t unusual for us. We’re usually that busy,” said airport general manager Chris Wood.

What is different is that airports that usually grab the top spots are much less busy as most commercial air travel has ground to a halt with COVID-19.

https://www.therecord.com/news/waterloo-...ember.html

[plam]

Meanwhile, the Record's site points me to an article from 2020 saying Pivot Airlines is going to give service from YKF to Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Windsor a go.

https://www.therecord.com/news/waterloo-...rt.html?rf

[tomh009]

Meanwhile, the Record's site points me to an article from 2020 saying Pivot Airlines is going to give service from YKF to Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Windsor a go.

https://www.therecord.com/news/waterloo-...rt.html?rf

I think this has been in the works since 2019. A definitive agreement is good, but I presume service won't start until the COVID restrictions are eased. Getting to Ottawa should be pretty good, but I wonder how long the flight to Montreal will take given the stops in Toronto and Ottawa on the way.

Still, this has a better chance of being viable than direct service.

[ac3r]

It seems like there are always airlines saying they're going to start up operations here, but then quickly shut that down when they realize very few people want to fly out of Waterloo Region. WestJet is the only passenger airline that has managed to stick around (edit...FlyGTA and Bearskin may still use the airport? But they only fly tiny charter flights with propeller planes, no jets).

[tomh009]

It seems like there are always airlines saying they're going to start up operations here, but then quickly shut that down when they realize very few people want to fly out of Waterloo Region. WestJet is the only passenger airline that has managed to stick around (edit...FlyGTA and Bearskin may still use the airport? But they only fly tiny charter flights with propeller planes, no jets).

I expect this will be Dash-8 Q400 service given the short distances. The milk run model should give them a better chance of success.

[panamaniac]

It seems like there are always airlines saying they're going to start up operations here, but then quickly shut that down when they realize very few people want to fly out of Waterloo Region. WestJet is the only passenger airline that has managed to stick around (edit...FlyGTA and Bearskin may still use the airport? But they only fly tiny charter flights with propeller planes, no jets).

I expect this will be Dash-8 Q400 service given the short distances. The milk run model should give them a better chance of success.

Somebody would have to explain to me how having to pay airport fees at Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal could make for a financially viable route, when Bearskin cancelled it's Kitchener-Ottawa route because the Ottawa airport fees were too high.  I don't get it ...

[taylortbb]

I expect this will be Dash-8 Q400 service given the short distances. The milk run model should give them a better chance of success.

Somebody would have to explain to me how having to pay airport fees at Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal could make for a financially viable route, when Bearskin cancelled it's Kitchener-Ottawa route because the Ottawa airport fees were too high.  I don't get it ...

Bearskin operates tiny 19 seat planes, while the Q400 seats 70-78 passengers. Lots of the airport fees are per-plane, so if you can fill the larger plane (through the milk-run model) the airport fees are a lot more affordable.

[danbrotherston]

Somebody would have to explain to me how having to pay airport fees at Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal could make for a financially viable route, when Bearskin cancelled it's Kitchener-Ottawa route because the Ottawa airport fees were too high.  I don't get it ...

Bearskin operates tiny 19 seat planes, while the Q400 seats 70-78 passengers. Lots of the airport fees are per-plane, so if you can fill the larger plane (through the milk-run model) the airport fees are a lot more affordable.

I suspect the point about the milk-run was basically that it doesn't matter how full your plane is at each airport, since you pay per plane, all that matters is how many passengers are embarking or disembarking at that airport.  Milk run doesn't buy you any savings on airport fees, only airplane fees per flight destination.

Ultimately, the economics are not such a well defined system, every airline has slightly different economics and each flight model has slightly different costs/benefits.

I just wish we had better trains.

[bgb_ca]

It seems like there are always airlines saying they're going to start up operations here, but then quickly shut that down when they realize very few people want to fly out of Waterloo Region. WestJet is the only passenger airline that has managed to stick around (edit...FlyGTA and Bearskin may still use the airport? But they only fly tiny charter flights with propeller planes, no jets).

I would take YKF over Pearson if they had a flight out east to Halifax instead of Calgary (of course, post pandemic). The most frequent route pre-pandemic for me was YYZ-YYT and if I had to change planes at YHZ to avoid YYZ I would do so in a heartbeat.

[tomh009]

Somebody would have to explain to me how having to pay airport fees at Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal could make for a financially viable route, when Bearskin cancelled it's Kitchener-Ottawa route because the Ottawa airport fees were too high.  I don't get it ...

Bearskin operates tiny 19 seat planes, while the Q400 seats 70-78 passengers. Lots of the airport fees are per-plane, so if you can fill the larger plane (through the milk-run model) the airport fees are a lot more affordable.

The milk run should allow the airline to fill more seats as it is not just a single destination. And filling seats is the first priority in being profitable.

Fees in YOW, assuming the 50-seat CRJ100:

• Landing fee: $337.80 (assumes 6000 kg max takeoff weight)
  
• Terminal fee: $184.64
  
• Police and security charge: $136.00
  

[Coke6pk]

It seems like there are always airlines saying they're going to start up operations here, but then quickly shut that down when they realize very few people want to fly out of Waterloo Region. WestJet is the only passenger airline that has managed to stick around (edit...FlyGTA and Bearskin may still use the airport? But they only fly tiny charter flights with propeller planes, no jets).

FlyGTA was a great marketing ploy for the Region.  The only full flight (and I think full was 5 people) was a media trip.  After that there were less than 5 trips that actually happened.  The website showed SOLD OUT for a lot of flights, but there were no planes in YKF on any of those dates.  The fact that FlyGTA is mentioned at all shows the impact that one media day had on the knowledge of the masses.

Bearskin flew (pre-COVID) students from the north to YKF to be bussed to the school for the blind in Brantford on a charter.  Bearskin also has maintenance done at Chartright (formerly MillardAir Hanger), but they have no scheduled passenger operations.

My biggest issue with YKF is the Regional management, as opposed to a for-profit company.  [ie. YHM is owned by the City of Hamilton, but managed by a Vancouver company].  There is no real pressure to perform better.  As well, they bend to the complaints of "taxpayer complaints".  Nolinor Aviation ran a successful flight to Baffin Island for miners.  This brought both jobs to our region, as well as tax paying residents who lived here when not at the mine. [They were two weeks up, two weeks down].  Three residents of Hidden Valley (AKA: $$$) were successful in complaining enough to push Nolinor Aviation out to Pearson.

Fast forward to a few months ago, where a new discount airline (that is actually flying passengers) started up (OWG) at Pearson.  Guess which former YKF charter airline runs OWG.  [Hint: They might piss off rich residents, but would of been a shoo-in to have started OWG operations in YKF if we didn't piss them off]

Coke

* NOTE: Pre-pandemic, YKF was consistently between the 8th-12th busiest airport in Canada... hitting 6th once about 15 years ago.