Were airlines sacrificed for the Nation ?

[Gilles Hudicourt]

Like I already wrote, the vast majority of the passengers Transat brought home, came back using the return portion of round trip tickets they had purchased before the crisis. These tickets had been priced on the assumption that the outbound flight would have been nearly full. They were empty.

Soem people say that those seat had been sold. True. But the flights occured, the fuel was burned, and the passengers who were not on those flights are beeing given credit vouchers for flights in the future which the cpm.

Only a minute proportion of the passengers bought return tickets such as the couple mentioned in the article. Snowbirds who spend the whole winter overseas generally buy one way tickets.......

[TT1900]

I‘m not talking about financial aid for Surviving the Covid-19 crisis. I’m talking about the Government reimbursing the airlines for the direct cost of flying the Canadians home. What other industry paid for this ?

What other industry took large numbers of Canadians out of country? If a for-profit business has sold a particular service to a customer then it’s on them to deliver. Just because their business has been upended by world events doesn’t make the government responsible for the losses.

If cruise ship passengers have to fly home then the cruise line should cover it. If expats choose to come back they should cover it. If dual citizens are living in their other country of citizenship they should just stay put. If airlines sold a round-trip ticket to someone then they need to deliver.

[YYZSaabGuy]

Like I already wrote, the vast majority of the passengers Transat brought home, came back using the return portion of round trip tickets they had purchased before the crisis. These tickets had been priced on the assumption that the outbound flight would have been nearly full. They were empty.

Only a minute proportion of the passengers bought return tickets such as the couple mentioned in the article. Snowbirds who spend the whole winter overseas generally buy one way tickets.......

And like I already wrote, the cost of the outbound empty leg is a legitimate cost that should, on the face of it, be covered under the abovenoted program with Global Affairs Canada. Unless, as I already indicated, you have a factual basis for stating that it is not being covered.

[Gilles Hudicourt]

The message is not getting across. Or you skipped some posts.

Global affairs had no role, except for a few flights. A minute portion of flights.

From about March 14 to April 1, Transat flew to all its destinations empty and came back to Canada with its customers.

On March 15 alone, TRansat did 48 repatriation flights that left Canada empty, or nearly so and came back with a big load of passengers. This went on for over 2 weeks.

The vast majority of the people who came back to Canada during that period are people who already had Transat tickets, which had been purchased when the flights were full in both directions and at prices set when that was the assumption.

Only a very small minority purchased tickets to come home. A very small minority came home on Global Affairs chartered flights.

[digits_]

Transat had a choice:
1) honoring the original tickets and dates
That would have resulted in near empty flights, as no new tickets were being booked for march-may
2) do what they did and what you described: allow people to change the dates on their tickets and ask everyone to fly out in the same weeks.
This resulted in empty outbound flights and fairly full return flights. It saved on near empty flights in 1)
3) cancel flights completely
That opened them up to damage claims if people holding valid tickets are stuck and need fo pay for extended hotel stays and/or other expensive last minute flights.

I am pretty confident that the accounting department analyzed these (and many more) options.

I fail to see where or how the government influenced them in which decision to make.

It is also getting more unclear what point you are trying to make or what you are trying to accomplish.

[YYZSaabGuy]

Global affairs had no role, except for a few flights. A minute portion of flights.

That's going to come as a surprise to those Global Affairs personnel tasked with responding to inquiries from, and managing the repatriation of, the several hundred thousand to several million Canadians (depending what source you believe) who were effectively stranded offshore when the industry began to shut down.

Again: standing by for your link to a verifiable source that airline reimbursement for costs, as discussed above, has not happened and/or is not going to happen, and that airlines are just going to have to bear 100% of the costs themselves.

[Gilles Hudicourt]

That's going to come as a surprise to those Global Affairs personnel tasked with responding to inquiries from, and managing the repatriation of, the several hundred thousand to several million Canadians (depending what source you believe) who were effectively stranded offshore when the industry began to shut down.

I can't believe we are having this dialogue of the deaf.......

Between March 15 and April 1,Transat did hundreds of flights at less than 50% capacity

Global Affairs had no role in Paying for the flights or organizing them (save for a minute number of flights at the end and probably that famous B-737-200 flight to Morocco that required 4 legs each way.......

https://onemileatatime.com/canada-rescu ... t-morocco/

As for your other question, ALPA and others are working on it, but no sign of it happening yet

https://www.alpa.org/news-and-events/ne ... us-package

https://www.atac.ca/web/images/Document ... arch29.pdf

https://canadianlabour.ca/canadas-union ... f-package/

NACC on the other hand has not put a statement out since March 20th, which is a very long time in this context.

https://airlinecouncil.ca/events-and-ne ... -releases/

[Gino Under]

People who chose to leave the country after airlines began shutting down and things started to get serious, were stranded by their personal decision to take their trip contrary to good SA and sensible advise. The airlines operating flights during that shutting down period were obliged to provide the contracted travel there and back to those who paid the fares and decided to travel. They (those carriers) too could see the writing on the wall but dragged their feet on a decision. Besides, you don’t just snap your fingers and it all goes quiet.

Canadians living outside Canada in countries who closed their borders (i.e., Morocco) and who hadn’t purchased any airfare should still be in Morocco. Not in government paid accommodation in Montreal because they have no home here. But there you go. Repatriated.

Many who gambled and lost and are now crying the blues. Or, stuck on a cruise ship.
It’s a mess. An indictment of both airline management and the government.

Or, if you’ve got the courage to call a spade a spade, those who chose to travel when it clearly looked like the industry was shutting down are to blame for their own predicament.
Then there’s the unsanitary wet market of Wuhan if you want to get specifics. (Who eats Pangolin for crissakes?) We’ve had 3 dry runs with pandemics. 2 of which came out of China and here we go again.

What a sh*tshow?

GU

[Gilles Hudicourt]

I fail to see where or how the government influenced them in which decision to make.

It is also getting more unclear what point you are trying to make or what you are trying to accomplish.

There were many cases In the past where airlines evacuated their passengers at their own expense. A hurricane. An earthquake. A conflict. They were all limited in scope and time.

As recently as as Feb 2019, Transat chartered helicopters to evacuate over 100 customers that were stranded in a resort in Haiti because the road linking the resort to the airport was blocked, A few months ago, Transat used a boat to evacuate passengers stranded on Cayo del Sur, Cuba, when a crack on the runway prevented aircraft from landing there for several days.

There was that time in 2006 when Canadians were evacuated from Lebanon at government expense, in a case of war.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/na ... le1103709/

Covid-19 was a different beast.

From the moment the PM of Canada took to the airwaves to tell people to stop travelling and to come home, all the airlines flying abroad should have asked to meet the government to come up with a concerted plan of action. The rules governing the airlines no longer applied and had to be revised.

Just like they would for banks if Trudeau took to the airwaves tonight to tell us to depositing our money in banks.

[goldeneagle]

I can't believe we are having this dialogue of the deaf.......

Between March 15 and April 1,Transat did hundreds of flights at less than 50% capacity

Yes, and you are being deaf enough that you just are not getting the message.

Yes, they did fly airplanes out empty. It's called 'the cost of doing business'. I'm sure the legal folks had some say in it too, advising accounting and executive types just what types of liability they may face if they just shut down and left folks stranded in destination.

Transat executives, folks WAY above your pay grade, made the choice to repatriate customers. Nobody held a gun to the head telling them they had to. They did the right thing, legally and morally, by getting folks home.

Sunwing went a step farther, and offered up empty seats for free to Canadians stranded.

This is where the cookies crumbled on this go around....

[YYZSaabGuy]

I can't believe we are having this dialogue of the deaf.......

I know the feeling!

Between March 15 and April 1,Transat did hundreds of flights at less than 50% capacity

Global Affairs had no role in Paying for the flights or organizing them (save for a minute number of flights at the end and probably that famous B-737-200 flight to Morocco that required 4 legs each way.......
https://onemileatatime.com/canada-rescu ... t-morocco/

As for your other question, ALPA and others are working on it, but no sign of it happening yet

https://www.alpa.org/news-and-events/ne ... us-package
https://www.atac.ca/web/images/Document ... arch29.pdf
https://canadianlabour.ca/canadas-union ... f-package/

Thanks for the links, but none of them address the point I've been asking you to substantiate regarding costs incurred in repatriation flights - they all deal with longer-term support programs to assist operators manage their way through the Covid-19 crisis, which is not what we were discussing. And your gratuitous comment about Global Affairs "probably" being involved in the Moroccan flight is a perfect illustration of your talent for just making stuff up on the fly when you don't have the facts. But hey, by all means, don't let your lack of facts get in the way of a good story.

[Eric Janson]

@Gilles

Times are difficult - I think all of us are concerned for our future. What is important is to keep a sense of perspective.

We are Pilots. We fly aircraft. That's it.

There is no point in worrying about things we have no control over because:-

There is nothing we can do about it. We are just along for the ride.

This is the most important lesson I've learned from going through multiple Airline Bankruptcies.

We will get through this. You will get through this.

[Gilles Hudicourt]

Statement made today by the Director General of IATA

https://www.iata.org/en/pressroom/speec ... -04-07-01/

A IATA cash burn analysis

https://www.iata.org/en/iata-repository ... nweAhkTaLk

[Eric Janson]

Just curious what IATA is basing their projections on - they know something the rest of us don't?

They're guessing - their V-Shaped recovery projection is just laughable imho.

IATA ranks right up there with the WHO and the IPCC imho.