And Here it Is! The New Air Canada Thunder Bay-Toronto Schedule

Well, you can now book starting May 1st on the new schedule Air Canada has for the Thunder Bay-Toronto run.  As noted in my last post, much was made of the move to larger A319 jets that would shave off 20 minutes off  a flight from the current turboprops but the more frequent schedule of six flights daily has now been replaced by three flights a day.  One thing remains the same however, the earliest flight out of Thunder Bay to Toronto is still at 5 am.

Going from Thunder Bay to Toronto, Air Canada now has three flights a day and every day:  5am, 11am and 5:15pm. 



 Coming back, its 8:20am, 2:30pm and 9:10 pm.



So there you have it, the new Air Canada out of Thunder Bay.  It will be interesting to see how it does compared to the competition from Porter and Westjet.  Going to Toronto on a weekday, Porter in early May currently has seven flights from Thunder Bay to Toronto Island (as opposed to Pearson for Air Canada): 6:45am, 9:00am, 11:10am, 12:40am, 2:10pm, 4:05pm and 7:15pm.  As for the return, another seven flights at 8:30am, 9:55am, 11:25am, 1:25 am, 4:35 am, 6:45pm and 8:20pm.  As for Westjet (which goes to Pearson also), from Thunder Bay to Toronto it is 6:10am, 11:50am and 5:50pm while the returns are departing at  9am, 3:10pm and 9:50pm.

Air Canada has cut capacity starting in May by 13 percent going from 468 to 408 seats.  Porter at seven flights a day with a Turboprop (assuming 78 seat capacity) will have 546 seats available while Westjet with three 78 seat Turboprop flights will have 234 seats.  So the smallest local player here is Westjet and given that they appear to be having some issues that have caused it to lag Air Canada nationally, one wonders if they will be the airline hit hardest by these changes in the Thunder Bay market and as a result be the most likely to exit.  Or will they counter with their own jet service and business class to compete directly with Air Canada on the Thunder Bay run?

Stay tuned.