Well the
Air Canada service story out of Thunder Bay has gotten more interesting. After
announcing they were going from six to three flights a day to Toronto out of
Thunder Bay – albeit on larger jets – they have
also announced that they are ending direct Thunder Bay Winnipeg service. There was a 5:35am flight to Winnipeg and one
back at 10:15 in the evening. While you
can still get to Winnipeg from Thunder Bay via Toronto, it is effectively a
reduction in Air Canada capacity out of Thunder Bay and the surrender of that
direct route to Westjet which still has direct Thunder Bay-Winnpeg service.
The more
interesting part of the story that was reported on TBNewswatch
was that it states the airline said that on the changes being made to the
Thunder Bay-Toronto run, the total number of available seats “will increase
from 390 to 408 daily because the A319 is a much larger plane”. This was a bit of a head scratcher given that
as you know I had estimated in a
previous post that there was going to be a reduction in capacity from 468
to 408. The capacity for the Q400 was assumed to be at the max – 78 seats –
which multiplied by the current six daily (weekday) flights – gives you 468. So, going from 468 to 408 is a -13 percent
drop which to me is a capacity reduction.
If you take
the current number as 390 and divide by 78 you get five – that is as in five
flights a day. However, Air Canada has
six flights a day on weekdays – but currently five direct flights a day on the
weekend. If you take 390 and divide by
six you get 65 which is well below any of the figures I have seen for seat configuration
for a Q400 on SeatGuru for either Westjet, Air Canada or Porter. Indeed, often the configuration is for 74
seats – a bit below the maximum capacity.
So, it appears
that Air Canada in stating (according to the TBNewswatch story) that daily capacity
is growing from 390 to 408 – an 18 seat increase which in percent terms is
about 5 percent – is referring to its weekend capacity. Its weekday capacity is still going down from
468 to 408 (or 444 to 408 if you want to use the 74-seat configuration) which
represents a decline of 13 percent (or 8 percent using the 74-seat
configuration).
Overall, if
you use 78-seats as the measure for a Q400, total weekly capacity on the
Thunder Bay-Toronto run will be going from 3,120 seats a week (5 times 468 plus
2 times 390) to 2,856 (7 times 408).
This is a reduction of 264 seats on a weekly basis or a drop of about 8
percent. If you use the 74-seat measure,
Air Canada on the Thunder Bay-Toronto run is going from 2,960 seats to 2,856
seats – a reduction of 104 seats on a weekly basis or a 4 percent drop.
Whatever
way I look at the numbers it seems to point to an overall capacity reduction by
Air Canada out of Thunder Bay – even without including the elimination of the
Winnipeg runs.
A special thanks to my Northern Economist
reader out of Dryden who alerted me to the numbers at the end of the Feb 26th
TBNewswatch story!
