Canadian/First Air Merger

[leftoftrack]

If the 5T/7F merger gets approved, will they expand their routes to southern city's direct? YYC YWG YYZ

[valleyboy]

Not likely, although they have done YWG for years, YYZ and YYC are saturated and I doubt much will change.

[godsrcrazy]

Wasn't this merger announced almost a year ago. Wonder how much longer before the competition bureau decides.

[leftoftrack]

It would be nice, reduce alot of people's travel by a day

[TenForTwelve]

Competition Bureau report out this morning.

https://www.canada.ca/en/competition-bu ... erger.html

[leftoftrack]

I read that as a hell no. Any one have a different interpretation?

[C-GGGQ]

Unless there is some weird lawyer double speak I missed, I'd agree "hell no"

[pelmet]

I would strongly recommend against the merger. There is no way prices will go anywhere but way up. I suggest Marc Garneau ask the residents of YFB what happened many years ago when Canadian North stopped flying south from Iqaluit for a few years.

"The Commissioner’s analysis has raised the following concerns with respect to a potential prevention or lessening of competition that may occur as a result of the Proposed Transaction:

The Proposed Transaction is likely to result in a substantial lessening of competition with respect to the provision of passenger travel and cargo services on all overlapping origin-destination pairs except Edmonton–Yellowknife, including on the Ottawa–Iqaluit route and the Trans–Arctic route, and within the Kitikmeot region, the Qikiqtaaluk region, and the Mackenzie Valley region;"

Basically almost everywhere except one route. I suppose the Makivik board would get their big payouts again for doing....what?.

[valleyboy]

So the solution is to have 2 airlines losing money instead of one making a profit. Anyone who has lived and worked in the Arctic knows that there is not a profit to be made for two. Ironically when airlines operate in that non profit area the first thing that is sacrificed is maintenance and it spirals from there and safety is eventually compromised. Westjet and AC have not helped the North. If you live in YK you get a break on fares but because of this 7F and 5T are forced to increase tariffs in the northern communities to offset the loss of revenue. Sh1t flows down hill.

Competition is still there and if the Northstar model works out I can see the migration of freight from these carriers, which would be bad enough in its self but add 2 large carriers(by northern standards) beating each other up there is bound to be a bankruptcy, especially if the co-op follows suit. First Air and C North are now subcontractors for a lot of their freight and could lose it overnight if and when the heavy lift side is revisited.

[dhc#]

Freight contracts (groceries) have always been the bread and butter for arctic operators...passengers are the gravy, and as was mentioned above, if the freight revenue disappears, people hauling alone won't sustain either company.

[Donald]

Just take a read of the twitter account of Kyle Sheppard (Iqaluit city councillor) to get some background on the direction that GNU is taking.

As long as competition is introduced on the yfb-yow route, and that fare gets reduced, they absolutely do not care what happens anywhere else in the north.

[pelmet]

If one a company is losing money, then they can drop a route or three instead of merging and massively raising prices. Or lease a smaller aircraft.

If things are bad enough, then one will go bankrupt, just like down south.

Or they can both raise their prices(not in collusion though).

But the guaranteed result of a merger is much higher prices.

[valleyboy]

I personally think a merger is a good thing for the north. To allow a bankruptcy amounts to the same thing in the long run and possibly exposes the traveling public to all the safety concerns there in. Regardless, the prices should be at a point where a company is viable and increases in tariffs would actually be less with a merger than denying it and let attrition do it's job.
The merger does not closed the door for competition and if someone wants to create competition, let them step up to the plate.

I can imagine the fire storm here if the government had offered subsidies to keep the airlines viable so why the negative reaction for wanting to keep a business operating in the black.

[fish4life]

Someone mentioned run a smaller aircraft but unfortunately the NU gov did this to themselves by requiring ridiculous things for medical contract work such as a "Jet Aircraft" for YWG-YRT

[Donald]

The merger does not closed the door for competition and if someone wants to create competition, let them step up to the plate.

I can imagine the fire storm here if the government had offered subsidies to keep the airlines viable so why the negative reaction for wanting to keep a business operating in the black.

And yet this is the solution, according to the competition bureau, to attract a new competitor:

The Bureau recognizes that major customer contracts, including those relating to governmental travel and recurrent cargo deliveries, may be important to potential competitors, and perhaps even necessary to make entry viable in the short term.

Subsidize the new guy with govt contracts.

https://www.competitionbureau.gc.ca/eic ... 04419.html

[pelmet]

Maybe the problem is too many flights with not enough payload. Matching each other flight for flight. Do they both need to be sending big jets on a route with exactly the same departure time.

If AC and WJ overload a route, they lose money and eventually, if the business is well run, cut back.

AC used to send DC-9 aircraft to places like YUY and YVO. Now it is smaller aircraft. RJ’s have replaced 737’s out west and have proven that they can be operated in the east. Freight from the south can go on freighters like Cargojet.

Airlines are putting too much capacity on routes and losing money. The answer is not a monopoly that massively raises prices to a point that is way more than reasonable.

[yhz41]

Someone mentioned run a smaller aircraft but unfortunately the NU gov did this to themselves by requiring ridiculous things for medical contract work such as a "Jet Aircraft" for YWG-YRT

This literally has nothing to do with the thread. This thread is not about medevacs. It is about

[fish4life]

Someone mentioned run a smaller aircraft but unfortunately the NU gov did this to themselves by requiring ridiculous things for medical contract work such as a "Jet Aircraft" for YWG-YRT

This literally has nothing to do with the thread. This thread is not about medevacs. It is about

The majority of the gov of NU work is medical travel not medevacs, this requires meals to be served on the sched and jet service between certain locations eg YRT-YWG in order to win the contract to take people down for appointments in southern locations.

[leftoftrack]

Lufthansa also recommended they no longer seperate the emergency travel from the return travel in the contract, so whoever is winning the return travel, is also gonna be winning the Medivac flights, should be an interesting RFP

[godsrcrazy]

Personally I say let them merger. Air Canada (Jazz) tried the Iqaluit route a couple years ago it didn’t last long. Trust me if someone comes in with a cheaper rate the passengers will change just like they did in Yellowknife. Yellowknife had the best of service before Air Canada and West Jet showed up with $75.00 seats on the RJ and 737. As soon as Canadian and First air dropped their Edmonton Calgary service to Once a day and not every day. $75.00 seats went to $250.00 seats at the cheapest and RJ and 737 are now Q400’s. From what I understand if you want to fly south for business for the day your choice is be at YZF airport if you can get a seat by 04:30 and your lucky to get back by 23:00 and don’t forget you get to ride 2 hours each way on a Q400 with a hope the flight attendants will come around more then once.

My Rant for today.

Just want to add. The Federal Government didn't give a dam when West Jet and Air Canada dropped rates to $75.00 to destroy the competition. Nor did they care when they increased the rates after the competition left. So why should they care about this.

[WarmSandDreams]

Maybe the problem is too many flights with not enough payload. Matching each other flight for flight. Do they both need to be sending big jets on a route with exactly the same departure time.

If AC and WJ overload a route, they lose money and eventually, if the business is well run, cut back.

AC used to send DC-9 aircraft to places like YUY and YVO. Now it is smaller aircraft. RJ’s have replaced 737’s out west and have proven that they can be operated in the east. Freight from the south can go on freighters like Cargojet.

Airlines are putting too much capacity on routes and losing money. The answer is not a monopoly that massively raises prices to a point that is way more than reasonable.

Medical contacts require a certain number of days a week of service, so the only way to reduce capacity would be to go from flying an ATR to flying a 1900 or metro, neither of which have the range to make these routes work with any useful payload. The 1900 also has a very similar operating cost per hour to an ATR. The ATR. You could get a king air and fly 4 people at a time, but that would dramatically increase cost. So if you can't reduce capacity by down guaging aircraft, and you can't reduce frequency, and the biggest cargo contact just went in house, how do you make money?

[pelmet]

Yellowknife had the best of service before Air Canada and West Jet showed up with $75.00 seats on the RJ and 737. As soon as Canadian and First air dropped their Edmonton Calgary service to Once a day and not every day. $75.00 seats went to $250.00 seats at the cheapest and RJ and 737 are now Q400’s. From what I understand if you want to fly south for business for the day your choice is be at YZF airport if you can get a seat by 04:30 and your lucky to get back by 23:00 and don’t forget you get to ride 2 hours each way on a Q400 with a hope the flight attendants will come around more then once.

Seems to me that before AC and WJ showed up, all flights were through YEG with a few exceptions. Now there are non-stops YYC and YVR in addition to YEG, No wonder a 737 was used. Now people are saving time avoiding YEG which saves a lot of time. Of course with less people going to YEG, a dash is used adding 20 minutes over those so much faster 737's. Thats called service improvement.

[valleyboy]

Seems to me that before AC and WJ showed up, all flights were through YEG with a few exceptions.

NWT Air which is now First Air did indeed continue on to YYC and even serviced the Muni, with option of connections out of Calgary. They also really did not want to land at Leduc but politics forced them to drop the Muni and use the International. The International was always a pig in a poke and no airline really wanted to use it for domestic flights, unlike Mirabel it survived and mostly by government intervention. In the 80's CYEG was close to being bankrupt and Municipal and Federal intervention diverted the Muni flights to Leduc and now the Muni is history as well.

Air Canada also made it impossible for NWT and 7F to continue the YYC route. Ironically it was ALPA that forced this by requiring NWT to pay for or place AC pilots in NWT aircraft on the route between Edmonton and Calgary. Route protection in the bygone days was very restrictive and also restricted to 80 seats or less.

I'm not saying days before deregulation were perfect but I'm sure there was no idea the industry would morph into what we have today. I don't know how anyone can actually have a good day travelling now. I think the only solution is offering cryo sleep. No wonder the world is one big pissed off cesspool of people. It's almost more pleasant going to the dentist than going on a flight these days.

[pelmet]

The city airport was convenient for a lot of people but it is gone.

It is nice that an airline used to make one stop flights to YYC but now they are non-stop.

Before AC and WJ arrived, if one wanted to travel to a multitude of airports not served by YEG, it was just an extra stop. Now one going to YVR or beyond (or even YYC that has much better connections) saves so much time.

Who the hell wants to arrive from Asia in YVR and then have to go through YEG? Even worse when YEG weather is bad. I guess it was convenient for a couple of northern operators.

Looks like the convenience factor is way up except for Edmonton folks who had all the convenience for themselves.

Competition has made things much more convenient in the west. Perhaps the east could do better as well. Montreal is way larger and more convenient for connections with everything YOW has times three and overseas connections. A lot of people could save an entire day on travel.

It’s like saying all flights from east to west across Canada should have to fly from YYZ to YVR so passengers can enjoy flying nice A380’s and then connect to to YYC, YEG, YOW, YHZ, etc. Maybe they are happy to save time and take a smaller airplane non-stop on all those routes instead.

Monopolies are rarely good for the customers.

[valleyboy]

Well 7F was first in that YZF-YVR-YZF route as well but a little thing call 9/11 happened and the Asian market dropped off - it's OK to rip the true northern people off but don't try to put competition into the southern market because everyone will gang up on you and that's OK. People in YK, in my mind are no longer "northern" or isolated. I think this all changed once Walmart moved in. Let's face it locals don't give a shit about the smaller communities as long as they get their deal and cheap seat. If they did they would embrace and support the northern carriers more.