Air Canada

[Ryan Air]

[Ryan Air]

Thanks for the help, Coyote! Wouldn’t have these pics or the others without you!

[Mr.Nuke]

Nice photos. Hopefully this route does well. The double Berkshire Hathaway service on Friday and Sunday appears to be sold out.

[damonhynes]

Thanks, Ryan Air! Surprised that water cannon didn't knock the airplane off the ramp...

[Ryan Air]

Thanks, Ryan Air! Surprised that water cannon didn't knock the airplane off the ramp...

Ha! I was thinking “easy boys” while I was watching.

[Bob from Omaha]

Once on a Vegas flight the pilot was retiring & we taxied through that. It's cool but we didn't know before & a lady thought we were on fire & they were putting it out.

[almighty_tuna]

That's something I thought I'd never see around here happening on purpose (vs an emergency landing). Now I gotta get a passport and take advantage of the opportunity!!

[daveoma]

YAAY!!

[nativeomahan]

Has anyone taken this flight yet? Toronto is such a fabulous city.

[Rusker]

Took it last month. Was much quicker than my flight back which for timing reasons had to be through United. Great service. The staff seemed a little bored at the counter which is unsurprising considering the sparse number of departures they were dealing with.

[joleo]

Looks like the month of June on Air Canada was a load factor of 68.7% assuming they flew 1 flight all 31 days of the month. This is typically the strongest month at Eppley so this is concerning. July is looking worse again.

I live in DSM, does anybody know if you hear advertisements on the radio or billboards around town?

Also, if you are looking at Air Canada serving other cities, ie Kansas City to Toronto, the nonstop flight pulls up on the United website. This is the case for all the USA cities that I checked but the the Omaha Toronto flights don't pull up on the United website. I wonder if the Eppley administration could work with Air Canada and United to get this flight onto the United website. I would guess it would boost the load factor by 10 percentage points!

[damonhynes]

Looks like the month of June on Air Canada was a load factor of 68.7% assuming they flew 1 flight all 31 days of the month. This is typically the strongest month at Eppley so this is concerning. July is looking worse again.

That's too bad, I hope it pulls through.

I live in DSM, does anybody know if you hear advertisements on the radio or billboards around town?

Also, if you are looking at Air Canada serving other cities, ie Kansas City to Toronto, the nonstop flight pulls up on the United website. This is the case for all the USA cities that I checked but the the Omaha Toronto flights don't pull up on the United website. I wonder if the Eppley administration could work with Air Canada and United to get this flight onto the United website. I would guess it would boost the load factor by 10 percentage points!

I've heard/seen zero adverts. Maybe the route needs a 787? Or how about complimentary Hortons? I'd fly just for them!

[Ryan Air]

Looks like the month of June on Air Canada was a load factor of 68.7% assuming they flew 1 flight all 31 days of the month. This is typically the strongest month at Eppley so this is concerning. July is looking worse again.

I live in DSM, does anybody know if you hear advertisements on the radio or billboards around town?

Also, if you are looking at Air Canada serving other cities, ie Kansas City to Toronto, the nonstop flight pulls up on the United website. This is the case for all the USA cities that I checked but the the Omaha Toronto flights don't pull up on the United website. I wonder if the Eppley administration could work with Air Canada and United to get this flight onto the United website. I would guess it would boost the load factor by 10 percentage points!

How is July looking worse? You have access to numbers we don’t?

The two MCI-YYZ flights had similar load factors. There are 30 days in June, not 31. The load factor was reported to the OAA as “around 75%” last I heard. Not sure if that’s a running total or what.

I have seen both the AC flight and UA flight listed together on respective websites before. I’ve also seen them listed on various routes as options to/from Europe. You have to specifically pick a route that the connection works for either, which given the times, isn’t very frequent. When booking London trip the way there on UA website gave AC as an option... and UA through IAH on the way back.

AC flight only has two months reporting, and the second month had a nice increase. Growth month over month is good.

[joleo]

Looks like the month of June on Air Canada was a load factor of 68.7% assuming they flew 1 flight all 31 days of the month. This is typically the strongest month at Eppley so this is concerning. July is looking worse again.

I live in DSM, does anybody know if you hear advertisements on the radio or billboards around town?

Also, if you are looking at Air Canada serving other cities, ie Kansas City to Toronto, the nonstop flight pulls up on the United website. This is the case for all the USA cities that I checked but the the Omaha Toronto flights don't pull up on the United website. I wonder if the Eppley administration could work with Air Canada and United to get this flight onto the United website. I would guess it would boost the load factor by 10 percentage points!

How is July looking worse? You have access to numbers we don’t?

The two MCI-YYZ flights had similar load factors. There are 30 days in June, not 31. The load factor was reported to the OAA as “around 75%” last I heard. Not sure if that’s a running total or what.

I have seen both the AC flight and UA flight listed together on respective websites before. I’ve also seen them listed on various routes as options to/from Europe. You have to specifically pick a route that the connection works for either, which given the times, isn’t very frequent. When booking London trip the way there on UA website gave AC as an option... and UA through IAH on the way back.

AC flight only has two months reporting, and the second month had a nice increase. Growth month over month is good.

You're right, only 30 days in June...brain fart, thanks! That would push the LF up to 70% from 68%.

As far as July, I just look around mid-morning every day for flights that day. For example, yesterday YYZ-OMA appeared to have 44 seats filled, which was one of the better days! On the OMA-YYZ leg, only 10 seats filled 2 hours before departure, I've seen several flights this low unfortunately. Especially mid-week.

Today...YYZ-OMA only 1 seat left to sell so booked at least 49 of 50 seats and booked 30 of 50 on OMA-YYZ. These is VERY good compared to other days I've checked, which is great news!

As far as getting the legs on United.com, if you type in Kansas City to Toronto, the nonstop Air Canada flight pulls on United.com and also connections to Europe pull. This is because there is a United codeshare flight number applied to the Kansas City flight and almost all other USA Air Canada flights except the OMA flight for whatever reason?

This is an advantage for people that are loyal UA fliers. I know two people that exclusively fly United and only go to United.com from Omaha. I know a 3rd that either flies United or Delta and he is a 1K United and Delta Diamond and flies every week. He said he uses either Delta.com or United.com to book all his flights. None of the 3 knew about the Air Canada flight if it weren't for me telling them. Also, the guy that flies every week including Toronto said that he doesn't have the time to search other websites besides United.com.

Knowing that I personally know 3 people like this, I'm sure there are many others out there and if Eppley could work with United and Air Canada to get the UA codeshare flight number added to the flight, it would really help the route, especially in the slow season when I expect dismal bookings.

I really wish the Eppley lerkers would chime in on this board sometimes but I hope they help to make this happen!

The good news is, Air Canada is willing to give routes time to develop, I read an article that an Air Canada executive said it takes up to 3 years for this to happen.

Unlike American who only gives a route 6 months before either dropping it or making changes. If AA would have given OMA-MIA longer, I think it would stay year-round, instead they dropped it entirely, then 2 months later it comes back for the winter only etc. The summer bookings on the MIA flight looked good! Btw...the MIA flight this winter leaves Eppley at 5:30am vs 7am! This allows for more connections in Miami but who wants to get up that early?!? Not me! And just think about the 300,000 people in Lincoln, they would need to get up at 2 or 230am! Very few of those people would take a 530am flight.

Also, the summer bookings on the Portland flight on Alaska looks way better too than the past yet the route ends in August and doesn't appear to ever come back. Fingers crossed it comes back next summer!! The Portland flight does bad in the winter. If Portland was served from May 1st until November 1st every year, this flight would be a success. Eppley should really push Alaska for that and better times! Those 1am arrivals hurt bookings and revenue! The flight needs to land in OMA at 11pm instead of 1am at the latest! And leave OMA no earlier than 7am to capture the Lincoln travelers!

[Mr.Nuke]

Looks like the month of June on Air Canada was a load factor of 68.7% assuming they flew 1 flight all 31 days of the month.

As was pointed out June only had 30 days. Additionally, neither the inbound or outbound operated for unknown reasons on June 18th. So the 68.7% load factor for the month was actually 73.4%.

This is typically the strongest month at Eppley so this is concerning

The route had been operating less than a month. It takes time to build service up. I have a feeling when we get DOT data it is in line with other recent additions.

July is looking worse again.

I’m hesitant to use seat maps on dummy bookings as evidence of actual load factors.

[joleo]

Looks like the month of June on Air Canada was a load factor of 68.7% assuming they flew 1 flight all 31 days of the month.

As was pointed out June only had 30 days. Additionally, neither the inbound or outbound operated for unknown reasons on June 18th. So the 68.7% load factor for the month was actually 73.4%.

This is typically the strongest month at Eppley so this is concerning

The route had been operating less than a month. It takes time to build service up. I have a feeling when we get DOT data it is in line with other recent additions.

July is looking worse again.

I’m hesitant to use seat maps on dummy bookings as evidence of actual load factors.

I agree, I don't use them except really close to the flight times once everybody has checked in. For example on Air Canada, 2 days before less than half the passengers have selected seats, really closer to 1/3 based off observations. You need to look about 2 hours before the flight, at that point 95% of people are checked in and selected seats.

[Louie]

Are those percentages low enough for them to consider dropping it?

[Bob from Omaha]

Clearly I don't know how much Air Canada is advertising in the Eppley Market but I do remember when Midwest Express tried to make Omaha a little hub. I don't remember all the cities they flew from non stop from Omaha but I want to say Orlando, New York, Washington D.C. and maybe Los Angeles. The problem I remember is that they put very little into advertising and the experiment died quickly. I flew out of Eppley on another airline the same day that one of the new Midwest Express flights had its first outbound flight. I counted about 10 people boarding. It was depressing and I remember thinking "Did they tell anyone?"

[Ryan Air]

[quote=Louie post_id=291632 time=1532908266 user_id=2302]
Are those percentages low enough for them to consider dropping it

AC is very profitable and doesn’t seem to add markets willy-nilly.

But the airline industry is fickle and sometimes unpredictable.

What one carrier perceives as “profitable” another might not.

[Ryan Air]

Clearly I don't know how much Air Canada is advertising in the Eppley Market but I do remember when Midwest Express tried to make Omaha a little hub. I don't remember all the cities they flew from non stop from Omaha but I want to say Orlando, New York, Washington D.C. and maybe Los Angeles. The problem I remember is that they put very little into advertising and the experiment died quickly. I flew out of Eppley on another airline the same day that one of the new Midwest Express flights had its first outbound flight. I counted about 10 people boarding. It was depressing and I remember thinking "Did they tell anyone?"

Advertising just doesn’t seem so important to me when it comes to air travel, unless trying to poach from another carrier for the same city served. Price is more important - and in most cases, I think people know where/how to check for price. Whether on an app or specific airline. Orbitz/ Expedia et al seem to have AC listed. But joleo has a point if UA website isn’t providing the direct option to/from YYZ. I don’t know the parameters of when the flight shows. I saw it when booking to LHR.

I’m not in advertising and know little about it- so the above is just my opinion. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.

[Mr.Nuke]

I agree, I don't use them except really close to the flight times once everybody has checked in. For example on Air Canada, 2 days before less than half the passengers have selected seats, really closer to 1/3 based off observations. You need to look about 2 hours before the flight, at that point 95% of people are checked in and selected seats.

Two hours out should be giving a better picture, but yeah one of the issues with seat maps and particularly in this instance where Air Canada charges to select seats in advance is obviously that there may be (there are) people that aren't going to pay that. Thus you have people on that flight with paid tickets that aren't reflected on the seat map until they check in. And even at two hours out it is possible someone has yet to fully check in.

Are those percentages low enough for them to consider dropping it?

It is still really early in the route. I would say if that holds though it is borderline. It isn't low enough to outright drop the route, but ideally you'd want to be closer to the uppers 70's low 80%'s to feel safe. I'm not worried right now. Comparing to June last year (really the best comparison we have until we start getting June 2018 DOT data) this flight would've been 15th out of 24 for the Air Georgian AC operated flights. It would've been 5 out 9 for flights that operated at about a 1x daily frequency. So in that context it looks pretty darn good for a flight in its second month to me. It also looks to be probably doing better than some of the other recent launches, but I want to watch the numbers for the next couple of months. I only have Eppley loads through April right now.

[Mr.Nuke]

Advertising just doesn’t seem so important to me when it comes to air travel, unless trying to poach from another carrier for the same city served. Price is more important - and in most cases, I think people know where/how to check for price. Whether on an app or specific airline. Orbitz/ Expedia et al seem to have AC listed.

I’m not in advertising and know little about it- so the above is just my opinion. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.

Agreed.

But joleo has a point if UA website isn’t providing the direct option to/from YYZ. I don’t know the parameters of when the flight shows. I saw it when booking to LHR.

The codeshare thing is a bit odd, and I don't know if it is a case of AC wanting to see how it does on its own or if it is incompetence on someone at AC or UAs part for not doing whatever it takes to add UA on. Just looking randomly at upcoming departures UA2403 is an A319 flying to O'Hare in about an hour and a half from the time of this post. That flight has code shares on Air Canada (AC5184) Aer Lingus (EI6358), and Lufthansa (LH9081). Star alliance is already codesharing out of Omaha and AC and UA codeshare on the MCI flight. We'll see what happens and yeah if anyone at the airport authority is reading this it is probably worth reaching out to the UA and AC reps to make this happen. I don't know that it is going to draw a ton of extra passengers, but it may draw some.

[nativeomahan]

We honeymooned there (plus Montreal). Truly great cities. Toronto reminded me a lot of New York.