Who cares where Air Canada flies. No one wants to fly on that airline anyway. This way Westjet can step in and provide a service that travellers actually want to use. No one flies Air Canada unless they have to, regionally anyway.

Hey I have an idea why Air Canada has not been successful. Everytime I have tried to book through Air Canada, I have to go online. It would kick you off before your done. I tried reporting this, and no one was available to listen.
Sooooooo, I go with West Jet everytime now.
A real person answers the call and books you right away. Congrats West jet.
Ps. Im wondering if this had anything to do with Air Canadas demise.

Air Canada has recently been reducing the number of seats out of PG to Vancouver by changing to Dash 8 and dropping the CRJ aircraft. Of course this is never made public. And now there is the fuel surcharge AND charge for the second piece of luggage. West Jet still accepts 2 pieces and their fuel surcharge is less.

RE Horizon guarantee....when they were assured a 70% load factor, was there a specific size of plane or number of passengers in the City's agreement? Was there any type of standard fee mentioned? Are the seats going to go up in price if they come close to not getting their payout from the city?

Air Canada makes me mad everytime I fly with them, given the option I will always go with West Jet.

On a different topic, any idea what we are on the verge of?

Tim Mcewan says we cant figure out why They dont want to work this out. This is so obvious. Try financial problems Tim.
duu.

Travism... we are on the same verge today that we have been on the verge of for the past forty years... on the verge of success and prosperity... it will be the same in another forty years as well.

"Over and over and over again my friend... We're on the eve of destruction... "

Oops... wandered down the wrong memory circuit there.... :-)

As with most large corporations, AC fails to see themselves thru the eyes of their customers... I would wager that none of the top brains have ever bothered to phone their own company to see how a customer might be handled.

V ...

Hey Colin, turn that frown upside down. No more problems after November. Remember, time flys even if our airplanes don't. Ha ha ha.

I don't know what we are on the verge of. We have some great happenings like the University and riverside trails (?????). Outside of that we are one dirty little town with heavy dirty trucks travelling through the centre of the City, yuk.

Great people though can't beat them.

We only fly WestJet as the other one is not a very good choice.
You can't beat WestJet and their staff!

Colin has done more for this dirty lil city than any others in the past have.

This is a direct result of pseudo politicians butting their noses into private enterprise.

Any fool with half a brain and a tail would figure out if you give their competition a $400,000.00 gaurantee to fly into Prince George that other **Bone Fide** Airlines would feel that they should also be entitled to a gaurantee. Which is what Air Canada asked for.

Horizen Air to Seattle will pull business away from Jazz, CMA, and West Jet. And for what????.

Who cares if some people from Prince George want to connect with direct flights out of Seattle. What has that got to do with me and my tax dollar. Where people go on their holidays, how they get there, what they spend has nothing to do with taxpayers of Prince George.

This whole Horizen endeavour is more about trying to get an International Designation for the Prince George Airport than it is about connecting flights out of Seattle. Jazz, CMA, and Westjet (with the exception of the 12 flights to Mexico around Xmas) cannot give you any International status.

To keep the 4 or 5 customs people on, etc they must promote International Flights, otherwise they will have to close it down.

Since when has our Mayor been concerned about where we go and how we get there for our holidays. He's working with IPG, the Airport Authority, etc; thats where the action is.

Since when has Air Canada listened to reason? Perhaps now, with this data, another airline WILL be willing to pick up this route. Kudos to all, and to the Mayor, for their admirable fight to keep the route. Now find an airline worthy of your efforts :)

monoplies- monopolies- monopolies thats what you have with a government subsidized airline and when they find out a route doesn't pay big they hang on to the position to keep competition from showing them how to do it. then it will be sold off to the highest bider for the lowest return-not unlike gordy's sell outs to monoplies - i wonder how big the paper bag donation will be for this one

Remember that Air Canada is now owned not by the people of Canada but rather by LiKashing (spl) of China who happens to be the same guy that owns the local Huskey Oil refinery that charges us Middle East oil speculation prices to use our own resources.

The federal liberal government killed profitable hub service for PG when they allowed Air Canada to shut down Air BC.

Air BC was not only a very competent airline that used PG as its second main hub in BC with near direct flights to Edmonton and Calgary as well as jets service 5-times a day to Vancouver. Air BC was throughout its history the most profitable airline in Canada by the ratio's, with a loyal customer base, a proud and recognizable symbol of BC and it did all of this without a dime of subsidy from the government.

Now we have an off shore entity that has its own agenda for profit and it sees opportunity for subsidy with our tax dollars.

PS Air BC flew not only into Seattle, but also had a Fort St John-Edmonton flight, and direct jet service to Whitehorse 5-times a day, as well as a Calgary service.

The air service to PG is by Jazz which is owned by Air Canada. It is an amalgamation of the four largest regional connectors in the country. They include Air Nova, Air Ontario, Canadian Regional and Air BC.
So in some ways Air BC is still serving PG although at the behest of Big Brother.
Maybe WestJet can create a bigger market out of PG like they have done at almost every city they started service to. Tell the mayor to not waste his time. Typically Air Canada will adjust the schedule of flights that are marginally profitable to a scheduled time that has no customers, eg midday, so that the market dries up and they are then justified in shutting the service down. I doubt the Jazz people like the decision Air Canada has made.

The air service to PG is by Jazz which is owned by Air Canada. It is an amalgamation of the four largest regional connectors in the country. They include Air Nova, Air Ontario, Canadian Regional and Air BC.
So in some ways Air BC is still serving PG although at the behest of Big Brother.
Maybe WestJet can create a bigger market out of PG like they have done at almost every city they started service to. Tell the mayor to not waste his time. Typically Air Canada will adjust the schedule of flights that are marginally profitable to a scheduled time that has no customers, eg midday, so that the market dries up and they are then justified in shutting the service down. I doubt the Jazz people like the decision Air Canada has made.

I think the city needs to decide what it values more, the link between the two cities or having a large carrier operate it. To me, the best opportunity for successfull air service would be to approach CMA with some incentive to restart their Calgary-Prince George service. According to the consultants, a flight departing in the morning and returning in the evening operated by a Dash-8 sized aircraft would have an 80% load factor. CMA operates Dornier aircraft from their Calgary base which are similar in size to a Dash 8. They used to run the flight 5 days a week and offered connections to Terrace/Smithers/Ft. St John and Ft. Nelson. As a small company, their cost structure should be lower than AC which should make it easier for them to turn a profit. I think convincing the company to bring back this service would be better than begging Air Canada with even more goodies, or approach Westjet. If AC can't make a 50 seat RJ work, Westjet certainly won't fill a 125 seat 737.