Something is fishy here…CMA is having trouble filling their YYC flights—this news from a CMA employee—and now WJ wants to add 119 seats after southern vacation season weakens–looking forward to some predatory pricing as WJ squeezses CMA out of YYC market.

I think this option is wonderful… as for now we only can access out of procincve locations via Vancouver and it’s rising costs.
Is the city offering a guarantee on this set up as well? As they did with direct to mexico?

I agree with bc2412. Something fishy. Not likely enough business to support two airline’s flying into Calgary. CMA started direct flights to Calgary from Terrace with a stop over at Prince George. So at the end of the day they could fly to Prince George to connect with West Jets flight, or try to compete.

BC Racer. The City never offered any guarantee on direct flights to Mexico. What they did was offer a guarantee to Horizen Air, on their flights from Prince George to Seattle. This turned out to be a **bust**

Or maybe this… with all the PG people starting to work in the Oil patch and doing 7 in and 7 out it makes sense. With the high paying jobs in the patch why not make them easier to get to ? CMA with its prop jobs arent the most desirable with our winter conditions.

PG to CGY to Fort Mc rinse and repeat.

You could be right P Val, however the action in the Northwest is now in the Terrace, Kitimat, Prince Rupert, area, not Prince George. That’s why CMA started the Calgary flight in the first place, and Prince George hitch hiked a ride on the way through.

We will have to see if CMA continues the direct flight from Terrace, or connects with the West Jet Flight in Prince George.

Just checked cost of flying to Vegas via Calgary (thereby avoiding the garbage Q400) & the cost is an extra $1400 (+-). No, I’m not joking. WestJet’s glory days are definitely behind them.

What’s fishy about it? We live in a capitalistic society.

Thanks Palopu, I knew they financed some stupid endevour….
Still wonder if they chimed in on this one too?

I am flying to Ontario shortly. WestJet offered lousy service to Ottawa from PG … something like a 12 hour total milkrun.

Air Canada has an 8 or so hour service via Vancouver then direct to Ottawa.

I flew via Calgary several years ago when CMA had a flight for a while. Connected with 1 hour layover in Calgary and then direct flight to Ottawa. Took something like 6 hours. Shortest flight time I ever had.

I suspect that because of the changes WestJet made recently to the PG-Vancouver run, this was looked up some time ago. Too bad I am flying before this takes effect.

Perhaps we are getting back to the kind of service we had 30 years ago. It would really be helpful if we did not have to fly south to go north or west anymore.

Why would they start service at the end of April if the idea is to let customers connect to sun destinations via Calgary? I guess people fly south all the time but it’s usually during the winter that everyone is looking for sun.
They made that mistake with Horizon….started in May and then wondered why they had empty seats. They quit before anyone had a chance to use them to escape winter. I doubt West Jet would make that mistake so..?

“Why would they start service at the end of April if the idea is to let customers connect to sun destinations via Calgary?

There are other destination than Central American sun destination – families in the summer, Canada and USA eastern destinations that have a winter and a summer season; Europe – direct flight to Edmonton and even Calgary will get closer to Europe. I suspect total number of seats are still more than seats to the south in winter.

Calgary is a sun destination when you live in PG.

I don’t think CMA is exactly shooting the lights out with the passenger loads on its direct flight to Calgary, so why would Westjet bring in a 737 to fly there?

Added to that, they recently got rid of the 737 for the service to Vancouver and went to the smaller Q400. Somebody at Westjet must be seeing something I don’t.

“It also announced Monday that WestJet Encore will start flying between Fort McMurray, Alta., and Kelowna, and between Fort McMurray and Vancouver starting in May.

The main WestJet service is also increasing its flights serving Fort McMurray, with new non-stop flights to Las Vegas and more frequent flights to Calgary and Edmonton.”

Johnny, the 737 still flies into Prince George. They replaced the morning flight with the Q400 and added another evening flight, actually increasing seating capacity to Vancouver. When people realize the great connections you can make out of Calgary its popularity will increase. Lots of people that typically connect out of Vancouver to the Caribbean will likely switch to this option, as it is less travel time as well. There is also the Alberta workforce that should help sustain it, the CMA flight left in the afternoon, which doesnt allow people time to connect to company charters on the same day to the oilsands. With WJ, one can now leave the same morning as their first day at work and make it home the same night as their last shift. It is a huge positive for this city!

No I dont work for the PGAA, but I do fly every week…

Don’t get me wrong, oil, I love to see more options. I hope Westjet can sustain it, and people take advantage of it.

Personally, I’m not a fan of the Q400, so anytime I can fly in a 737, I’ll take it.

If I could connect through Calgary flying back to PG from Ottawa instead of Vancouver, it would be a no-brainer. It would probably save at least 3 hours each way on what is already a long flight.

Heck, that may even be an incentive for me to visit more often if the prices aren’t goofy. Right now the PG to Ottawa trip is a minimum 8 hour day and $700 ticket. There are ALLOT of other options on the eastern side of the continent a heck of allot more attractive when it comes to travel times and travel cost.

It’s too bad that we can’t find a way to make travel within our own country more attractive. I understand the market forces at play though and theres no getting around the fact that we live in a massive country when you look at the West to East spread.

CMA established the direct flight Terrace, Pr George to Calgary. This of course would impact West Jets PG to Vancouver to Calgary business, so I guess they decided to put on a direct flight to Calgary.

CMA will get it in the ear, however it appears (on the surface) they forced WJ to do something.

Great news! Hoping they add the direct flight to Victoria back as well, as it was a Calgary–PG–Victoria route.