Calgary International Airport

[Mr.Wonderful]

I think its also important to consider that Etihad doesn't fly to a single US destination west of Chicago. That means, for any city west of and including Denver, a connection through YYC is the most geographically direct route. Sure, there are other competitors offering non stops to the middle east from these cities, but from Etihad's perspective I can see the logic. If they can put together a codeshare with WS, there could end up being a large number of US connections on this flight.

For reference, LAX-YYC-AUH is 630 miles shorter than through ORD.

 

[boreal96]

I fly to Paris 4 times a year through WS and there is always a sizeable amount of people going to Africa taking this flight, hence my previous post. But I also don't think the flight is in trouble, it is by far the cheapest option to go to Europe and it's always full, even in the off season.

 

[darwink]

I wonder if DUB to YVR would make as much sense now that Etihad to doing Calgary?

DXB from YVR is likely severely undermined by Etihad moving first, especially as Emirates wouldn't be counting on USA west coast feeder.

I think its also important to consider that Etihad doesn't fly to a single US destination west of Chicago. That means, for any city west of and including Denver, a connection through YYC is the most geographically direct route. Sure, there are other competitors offering non stops to the middle east from these cities, but from Etihad's perspective I can see the logic. If they can put together a codeshare with WS, there could end up being a large number of US connections on this flight.

For reference, LAX-YYC-AUH is 630 miles shorter than through ORD.

View attachment 711706

The SFO flight used to regularly go over YYC when winds (or disruption over Iran) favoured it over going on the east side of the Caspian Sea (routing via VAR to approximate their regular route bypassing Ukraine).

 

[trtcttc]

You'd have to wonder if this will affect KLM, and even AC to LHR with onward connections to India.

This route is very competitive with existing YYC-India and SE Asia. Flights to India and Vietnam that I looked up were similar duration to existing flights. When you get to East Asia, going transpacific is faster, but not by a lot, only 3-5 hours on some routes.

It's interesting this wasn't paired with a Westjet codeshare announcement. They have agreement on some Westjet and AC flights but not many. When Sao Paulo was announced and when SAS joined Skyteam, Westjet had an announcement of the specific routes that will now be connected/codeshared. I'd think that's in the works because otherwise, no way this flight would work.

 

[Surrealplaces]

DXB from YVR is likely severely undermined by Etihad moving first, especially as Emirates wouldn't be counting on USA west coast feeder.

Yeah that makes sense to me. With EY getting YYC and all of its feeder traffic it changes the numbers.

 

[blue12]

You'd have to wonder if this will affect KLM, and even AC to LHR with onward connections to India.

Couldn't help but wonder the same thing. I've heard rumblings of KLM increasing AMS-YYC to 10x weekly, I don't know the details of this but I wouldn't be shocked to see it only stay at 7x due to Etihad's entrance into the Albertan market.

 

[Chowda7]

I think EK will probably announce YVR still.

Currently EY only has an interline agreement with WS so I suspect that will be moved to a full codeshare.

I also wonder if the province played a part. They’ve been lobbying for a direct flight to the UAE for a while. Perhaps EY was the one willing to take the chance.

This probably played a big part as well. Announced during Carney's visit

Expanded air transport agreements with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to allow more passenger and cargo flights - Canada.ca

Today, the Honourable Steven MacKinnon, Minister of Transport and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, and the Honourable Maninder Sidhu, Minister of International Trade, announced that Canada has expanded its air transport agreements with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates...

www.canada.ca

 

[El Dorado]

I was checking out the pricing.. these flights ain’t cheap.. looking at around $3k for a round trip.. maybe it’s peak season pricing around December but if you factor in another flight if ppl are connecting through Abu Dhabi this won’t work for a lot of folks

 

[Albertasaurus]

I was checking out the pricing.. these flights ain’t cheap.. looking at around $3k for a round trip.. maybe it’s peak season pricing around December but if you factor in another flight if ppl are connecting through Abu Dhabi this won’t work for a lot of folks

I checked out the cost of a flight Jan 8-22 next year, it came up as $2390.44 for the two of us, which works out to just under $1200 each - pretty reasonable I thought.

 

[Surrealplaces]

I was checking out the pricing.. these flights ain’t cheap.. looking at around $3k for a round trip.. maybe it’s peak season pricing around December but if you factor in another flight if ppl are connecting through Abu Dhabi this won’t work for a lot of folks

It might depend on days of the week etc.. I've noticed with overseas flights the prices bounce around a bit if you do another search later and when using the same dates.

For example my flight YYC to NRT was around $1,000, but was around $850 to go YYC-YVR-NRT. A month later using the exact same dates YYC-NRT was $734, and YYC-YVR-NRT was $900. For sure trying different dates often makes a difference.

 

[Albertasaurus]

On another note, all these new flights ought to get YYC's passenger numbers over the 20 million mark this year (assuming we didn't hit that milestone in 2025)

 

[hollywoodcory]

Etihad Airways and Calgary Airports launch only Western Canadian direct route to the United Arab Emirates

CALGARY – Calgary Airports and Etihad Airways today announced a direct route to Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, currently the only direct flight between Western Canada and the UAE. Flying four days a week beginning November 3, the route connects Canada’s energy capital and gateway to the...

www.yyc.com

In the YYC article it says we fell just short of 20 million for 2025. But it’s probably in reach this year.

 

[hollywoodcory]

Another new route to close out January:

American Airlines is adding 3x weekly JFK starting in August. Flies on Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday, complimenting their existing Saturday service to LGA.

This brings us to 4 routes to New York. I wonder if WS will re-attempt LGA again.