YXS Buoyed By WestJet’s Western Flights
Prince George, BC – WestJet’s announcement yesterday that it will begin offering direct flights to both Fort St. John and Nanaimo with its new Encore fleet does not have officials at YXS feeling passed over. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.
Last June, representatives from 30 cities across the country went to WestJet’s Calgary headquarters to vye for the airline’s Encore regional service. Fort St. John and Nanaimo were the first two cities to capture connections, but WestJet is promising others will be added in the future. In an email to 250 News, WestJet Public Relations spokesperson, Robert Palmer, says, "Prince George is not a new city for us, but it would fall into the category of schedule improvements. We will have more on that in a separate news release later this week."
Prince George Airport Authority, John Gibson, says it’s all good news.
"I know that when WestJet was going to make their actual strategy to say ‘Where are we going to put our airplanes? We’re either going to go all east or all west.’ So when we heard they were going to do Fort St. John, we thought that’s great, they’re doing the west first." Gibson says an eastern regional strategy would have probably meant any direct flights between YXS and Alberta were two to three years away. With yesterday’s move, he’s no more certain, but he’s hopeful.
"We’ve had a lot of discussions with them over the last year and they’re very, very close to the vest," says Gibson. "They listen to us, they say we understand, but they have not tipped their hand as to what’s happening."
The Airport Authority President says, "It is good news that they started in the west. Mr. Palmer says there’ll be a news release later on this week – they haven’t told us that – (but) that’s all good news."
Comments
I still believe PG will be a regional hub so still expecting to hear good news for theairport. However I expect the naysayers to be out in force again they just don’t want to believe this city can grow and are extremely negative about it.
Its not about growing the City its about growing the Airline. If there is not sufficient business to warrant direct service to Edmonton, Calgary, or Victoria, then it will not happen.
Westjet is starting a direct flight from Vancouver to Victoria, so that is somewhat of an improvement.
This is all about the new Bombardier Q400 Turboprop Airplanes, and where they will operate. I suspect that Westjet will announce that the present service between Vancouver and Prince George with the Boeing 737 will be replaced with the Q400 Turboprops.,
At the end of the day, you may end up with less flights, and no additional service, which could hardly be considered as growth.
We will have to wait for the announcement later this week when they talk about schedule improvements.
Have a nice day.
Right Palopu. The announcements are based on today’s passenger demand. Since PG’s demand for flights are stagnant, we won’t get improved service, and as you noted, Westjet could very well start flying the Q400 out of PG soon.
Any ideas why they would run a flight from FStJ to Calgary? Woudl it be for the one week out and three weeks in? Just wondering.
Cheers
Ft. St. John is the major hub of Oil and Gas activity in BC, and Calgary is the corporate Oil and Gas hub. Makes perfect sense.
Having the 400 on the YVR route might be a good thing. If they were running at or near capacity there would be some incentive to have a direct flight to Calgary or Edmonton. As it stands those heading east help fill the 737’s.
There was a Westjet exec on the news and by the sound of it they only have a couple of planes now with 5 more coming later this year so I expect status quo for the foreseeable future.
JB -agree that it is execs, engineers, consultants etc that will drive the business between FSJ and Calgary….heading up for meetings and not oil patch workers.
Ft St. John is 200 km to Grande Prairie in Alberta and its residents can use the flights from there too. PG is not in a good location being far away from the Alberta border and farther away from the Ocean.
“We’ve had a lot of discussions with them over the last year and they’re very, very close to the vest,” says Gibson. “They listen to us, they say we understand, but they have not tipped their hand as to what’s happening.”
Mr. Gibson must be able to access current passenger loads from PG to Calgary (via Vancouver) and determine whether it warrants a dedicated direct flight. If the demand is there, the airlines will do it.
How often the past have they canceled flights from PG to Calcary? Dream on Mr Gibson.
Cheers
The reason why I book with Westjet and not Air Canada is because Westjet uses the nicer, larger and more comfortable 737 and Air Canada uses that ugly old Dash 8 that hums and vibrates all the way to Vancouver. It also adds 28 minutes to the trip. The Dash 8 is fine for Van to Vic or Van to Kelowna. I think it’s too small and too slow for PG to Van. JMHO.
28 minutes PGguy? I just flew up from Van on a Dash 8 in an hour and ten – so Westjet is doing it in 40 minutes? ;)
IF you look at the times posted for the 2 airlines, AC says 1:28 with the DH8. 737 is always 1 or 1:05. Again, the time isn’t the big issue. It’s the vibration, noise and tighter cabin on the DH8 that I don’t like.
It must be an issue since the “Q” in the Q-400 that Westjet is buying stands for quiet.
I get used to certain standards when I fly and the 737 is a higher standard over the DH8 yet I don’t see AC kicking Westjet on prices. I expect that if it’s half the plane, it’s gotta be less money to buy the ticket.
When you look at the volume, Jazz had a smaller capacity per average plane (they were flying two types). That will be increasing, thus they will have one less flight per day. That cuts a bit into options.
With Westjet, it may be the opposite. They have the capacity with 3 flights a day and they were flying relatively full, I believe. If they remove those planes they will likely replace them with enough flights to maintain the total volume capacity, so they may end up adding two flights.
But we will hear soon enough.
So likely both WJ and AC will have the Q-400’s and its as great plane and perfect for the PG-Vanc flight. I can see lots of flight options and competative prices with them going head to head with the same equipment.
We lobbied WestJet for years to come to FSJ – but over 40% of their ticket sales out of Grande Prairie were from BC postal codes. If they had added FSJ as a destination then they would have just diluted their own market. The only direct flight to Calgary from FSJ now is Central Mountain, and it is always full, and requires a stop in Edmonton. Air Canada Jazz routed to Calgary through Vancouver at close to $1,000.00 round trip. Airlines will only do routes where they can make money, and FSJ-Calgary was a natural. Likewise mid-island to Calgary, as lots of folks who work in Calgary on a rotation live on the Island – or they work in Fort MacMurray and can cycle out through Calgary.
keep in mind the fastest growing airport in numbers and percentages after FSJ is YXT-Terrace Kitimat, not YXS.
It would be interesting to know what inducements FSJ offered Westjet to induce them to come there. I cant help but think of the PG Seattle fiasco of a few years back.
that said, i certainly hope it works out for all of them-anything to break AC’s monopoly on these mid sized markets is a good thing.
“It would be interesting to know what inducements FSJ offered Westjet to induce them to come there. I cant help but think of the PG Seattle fiasco of a few years back.”
Who says there were any? The PG-Seattle fiasco was someone’s pipe dream of building a market that wasn’t there. FSJ to Calgary is a no-brainer for the reasons already mentioned.
I am wondering how long people can lead a life of commuting such distances for regular jobs. If the job is a “permanent” one, say for 5 to 10 years, one would think that they would eventually move closer to the location rather than living “out of a suitcase” for week after month after year.
For those with their own family, that is certainly not a family life. Kids will grow up as if their parents are divorced.
Thunder Bay … The north of Alberta and BC are not exactly unique.
The lure of money …. at what cost?
Does not seem to me that it is a workers’ market. If it were, they would stay near home and work there unless they do not like family. Or apply their skills to a different type of job.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/story/2012/10/01/tby-long-commute-series-1.html
gus: “I am wondering how long people can lead a life of commuting such distances for regular jobs. If the job is a “permanent” one, say for 5 to 10 years, one would think that they would eventually move closer to the location rather than living “out of a suitcase” for week after month after year.
For those with their own family, that is certainly not a family life. Kids will grow up as if their parents are divorced.”
I couldn’t do it myself, but it seems to be the trend nowadays.
If the alternate is living in a greasy northern City, with all the problems that, that entails, then commuting to areas like Nanaimo, Courtney, Edmonton, Calgary, Saskatoon, is a viable option.
What about those people who serve in the armed forces for 20 years?? Fishermen?? Airline pilots.
Many Airline pilots live in various US Citys but their jobs are all over the world.
Being away from your family is always a concern, however the alternative is sometimes much worse.
Comments for this article are closed.