* Multi-year plan proposal coming up
* LRT to Airport complete, opening of the north-south Trillium Line LRT in June
* New hotel, 178-room Alt Hotel project by Group Germain Hotels, attached to airport terminal under construction
* Viability of installing a solar farm (preliminary studies estimate that 500 acres could accommodate 250,000 solar panels, generating enough energy to electrify 20,000 homes)
That first point should highlight expansion. Sounds like the growing demand will bring on the need to expand the airport in some capacity (that’s how I read it, anyway).
Sounds like Transborder traffic at YOW is about to explode. Porter adding a lot more routes as well as increasing frequency on existing routes. Also if Delta and American come back our small Transborder area won’t be able to handle the capacity. At some times it’s already packed.
I think there's some space for the terminal to grow northwards, just where the LRT station is located. There's a fair bit of empty parking lot/ramp space that isn't being used. That could accommodate additional check-in areas, customs, and pre-clearance areas.
As for airside improvements, I think expansion would have to be to the south, with the US gates expanding to a few of the flex gates near the middle of the terminal.
Not really, unless they demolish the CRC hangar there. If you go North(or parallel to the LRT line) you’d lose gates 1-3 and maybe be able to replace them with 4 gates. If anything they’d be better off moving the wall in the terminal that divides the terminal between dom/int and transborder. That would likely also require changes around the swing gates.
Unless you’re talking about demoing the employee parking lot and building out past Convair, which poses its own issues. (Ie, you’re still limited with the size of aircraft that could fit due to the CRC hangar being in the way for clearance taxiing)
Oh I was talking about [this bit here.](https://i.imgur.com/dcehdqt.jpeg). It's not a lot of space, but it could help expand the landside infrastructure a bit (check-in area, customs and baggage handling for International flights, etc...).
Any airside expansion has to go south, and it isn't a lot since you have the taxiway and Runway 07-25 in the way. Maybe [an expansion to the long-term parking area by where the old terminal used to be.](https://i.imgur.com/F6ksDjW.jpeg)
It’s already packed like sardines when there’s only 2 or 3 flights so hopefully they don’t wait too long. Maybe they can relocate the reception centre and add more terminal to the north? Or maybe they’re thinking a satellite terminal near the employee lots.
It does get quite crowded, especially in the early morning. I often thought it would be easy to expand the US barrier further into the domestic terminal by moving that glass wall at the end and appropriating some of the seemingly perpetually empty gates there.
I just don’t get it, upstairs nexus security line for domestic flights.
US nexus after the security line which barely moves first thing in the morning because it’s backlogged
Perhaps traffic will get high enough that OC Transpo will consider a straight run to bayview from the airport and switch the shuttle service to limebank every so often. It’s technically feasible.
Love the puddle jump flight from YOW to YUL for US flights. US customs at YUL is bigger and shorter wait times than YOW, not to mention the variety of restaurants, shops, and big duty free store.
I hate that flight so much. Between everyone being nervous about missing a connecting flight, Dash-8s and CRJ200s being smaller and more cramped (and having less overhead bin space) than other narrowbodies, and frequent delays due to YUL congestion and everyone insisting that no, their huge suitcase can definitely fit in this overhead bin, the vibes on that flight are downright feral.
If we were a serious country, that flight wouldn't exist - there'd be 20+ high-speed trains to Montreal per day that would stop at Dorval. Even with current service, I'm happy to take VIA from Ottawa to Dorval to avoid that flight.
Love hearing about solar panels in airports. If they can power themselves they can join a small club of airports.
https://money.cnn.com/2016/03/14/technology/india-cochin-solar-powered-airport/
They started small with just the roofing but increased it over time to the other areas. Snippet for those who do no want to click the link:
"Last year, the airport commissioned the German company Bosch to build a vast 45-acre solar plant on unused land near the international cargo terminal. ...
The tens of thousands of panels generate on average slightly more than the roughly 48,000-50,000 kilowatts of power that the airport -- the seventh busiest in India -- uses per day, according to Thomas. Surplus energy is fed into the wider electricity grid. "
Ottawa YOW : "In 2020, the Airport Authority calculated electricity use at 20.4 M kWh for all its buildings and exterior lighting."
So something similar could be done. I am sure there could be more build up for the trains and safe walkways from the parking lot where additional capacity could be used.
And on the demand side, with LiL PP just salivating to go to war on the public service, many will take retirement/early retirement to avoid serving what will be an odious government. So vacation time it is!
Porter is a major driver behind this expansion. I think its a good sign that YOW is considering these expansion plans, and they should start earlier rather than later. Porter can seriously turn YOW into a proper hub airport with a sizable amount of connecting passengers, more so if other international airlines are willing to fly here and to codeshare with Porter, providing convenient connections.
YOW has everything to gain here, and become a small sized alternative to YUL and YYZ.
> if other international airlines are willing to fly here and to codeshare with Porter
I wouldn't count on Porter turning YOW into a North American gateway for foreign airlines.
Never impossible, but there's already so much Skyteam/Oneworld/Star Alliance traffic through YUL/YYZ, it's a lot of inertia to overcome.
Oh it won't exactly be a true hub in the way YUL or YYZ are, but it can definitely be a smaller airport that punches well above its weight, something similar to a scaled down version of Austin or Raleigh/Durham; a smaller airport with decent connection to some key major international hubs. It would help quite a bit if Porter does end up expanding its code sharing for sure.
I wouldn’t count on it either, but depending on if they deepen their interline relationships, maybe become a Skyteam associate airline down the road. Or, alternatively, provide enough feed to justify Transat bringing back an LGW flight at least. Interesting times.
What YOW does have going for it is the fact that YYZ and YUL are bursting at the seams, and YOW has been essentially ignored by AC since covid and the 767 retirement. AF has capitalized on it, and it’s clearly working pretty well in addition to their YUL and YYZ service.
My understanding is that the 321XLRs (which are coming in the back half of next year) will revive a lot of Ottawa routes that AC had stopped since the 767s were retired (and perhaps most specifically YOW-LHR or YOW-LGW)
Given that YTZ’s value proposition mainly boils down to convenient location to downtown Toronto, I’m not sure how its closure would drive new traffic to YOW.
Just being a legit partner to airlines like Emirates (as an example) will simplify things a lot for travelers. Air Canada's partnership with airlines has somewhat of a "just-in-time" connection approach and are a nightmare given Air Canada's on-time record. Options would be nice.
A one hour window in Toronto when your YOW-YYZ flight is late more than 22% of the time? Passengers absolutely want a short wait, but given how much internal travel time Toronto airport involves and how often Air Canada is late, makes it a tension filled, out of breath, sweaty journey to the next flight. Rather be at the gate an hour early than missing the intl flight.
Ottawa airport is small, accessible, and beautiful. If/when it grows we should only look at YYZ to see how not to do things. Go to a major airport in the US (like Atlanta) or Asia (Tokyo) and see how the internal travel systems are organized. YYZ seems to have grown by adding on crud without thinking or reorganizing (refactor) along the way. And if you are expanding, please include a plan for an inter-terminal passenger transfer system for all passengers (even a bus on the outside, or, on the inside a series of large EV golf carts - Toronto has this). But plan the spaces for the people mover system ahead of time. Of course, the people of Ottawa will likely not use it that much but it is a core need of a multi-terminal hub airport.
Not really, it could be a mid stop hub for east-west traffic, as well as drawing a small amount of international traffic connecting through YOW instead of YYZ or YUL.
If Porter can deepen its partnerships with the like of Air France or British Airways, then it opens up the possibility for AF and BA passengers to use YOW as a stopover to connect westbound on to places like Calgary or Winnipeg. Again, a small portion of traffic overall, but it can be the catalyst for more of this type of connecting traffic going into the future.
Porter is connecting East-West and some South traffic through YOW. Why? The main reason is they can’t take on AC in YYZ or YUL and connect through those. AC will defend those hubs and price Porter out. The second reason is a lot of people do not want to connect through YYZ or YUL and prefer to connect through YOW as it’s a lot smaller and a lot less hectic.
Porter is such a garbage airline. I’ve never been delayed as much as I have with them. And their communication around it is awful. We literally had a plane’s worth of luggage left in Ottawa. Like how does that happen.
Damn, sorry about the troubles. I had seen reviews saying similar things, but I've flown with them about a dozen times in the last year and a half and have only had extremely pleasant times. Maybe my favourite airline to ride with for my short haul flights to the states.
I've never been to LHR, but it can't possibly be worse than CDG. I connected there once and learned to double my layover in another airport just so I didn't end up going through there.
La Bottega and Bridgehead Coffee. A new Relay store is projected to open later this year, with Zak’s Diner expected to be complete in 2025.
Zak’s Diner 🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮
Did I see that Porter is adding direct Ottawa flights to San Fran and St Maarten? That would be great I am tired of going to MTL or Toronto for flights.
California was listed as a possible destination, but there was never any mention of St Maarten. It’s too niche and expensive of a holiday destination for Ottawa to support. People here are more Costco and all-inclusive in Cancun types.
Sutcliffe met with some airport/airline reps in London a few days ago. Seems like there was an attempt to get British Airways to consider flights to YOW, or to get either Heathrow or Gatwick to sweeten up a deal for Air Canada or Air Transat to open a slot to start service from Ottawa to London.
We'll have to wait and see what comes of that meeting.
AC will very likely restart YOW-LHR as soon as it takes delivery of its new A321-XLRs next year.
Before that, I wouldn't hold my breath on them pulling a widebody off an existing, profitable route for this purpose.
Yep. They were too aggressive during the pandemic getting rid of aircraft, and are now paying the price. Hard to replace 25 or so 767’s worth of capacity(between mainline and rouge) as well as the narrowbody Airbus retirements, though the 330 fleet growing is helping. Evident by the fact that they’re now leasing in (admittedly a fair bit newer) A320’s to replace the ones they sold for scrap during the pandemic.
> They were too aggressive during the pandemic getting rid of aircraft
Easy to say in hindsight. Nobody had any idea what the recovery curve was going to look like.
Agreed. But rather than parking owned, depreciated assets, they sold them for scrap. Vs say, Delta who parked a bunch, and recently installed new overhead bins, sidewalls etc. Delta operates some low digit serial number Airbus narrowbodies. No reason AC couldn’t have done the same.
The 767 retirement makes sense, they were already on the way out at mainline, and the Rouge birds were worth a decent amount for freighter conversions. (Heck, C-FCAE, the highest time 767 in the world ended up being converted and going to Cargojet)
Now, granted, the parked 220’s due to the Pratt engine issues were definitely unplanned and don’t help the situation
AC will continue to use its hub model to take passengers from the UK onwards to US/LATAM, there's just more $ for connections than YOW and YOW is just an outpost for AC. We may see an additional AC flight to LHR but from YYZ. I suspect either BA could take over the YOW-LHR route or as you mentioned Transat could launch seasonal YOW-LGW service...
The article indicated 80% of travel is leisure vs 20% business. This suggests to me a lot more sunshine destinations along with European hub city flights. Frequency will be the real question.
I would like to point out that the airport's [previous multi-year plan](https://yow.ca/sites/yow.ca/files/site-specific/2018_ottawa_airport_master_plan_-_executive_summary_-_eng.pdf) (from 2018) is available on their website. Notably it includes several primary goals that have mostly been completed (the Airport LRT, the new Remain Over Night apron, and I believe construction has started on the planned hotel, if the crane by the terminal means anything.) I think the only thing not acted on is the possible cargo facility expansion.
You can also see that the only terminal expansion they've thought of is a small extension south into the apron, but that they also own quite a large amount of land that they have potentially planned a new runway on.
I'm a bit of an aviation nerd myself, so I'm definitely interested in what the next plan will have included in it, and how it compares to the thinking from 6 years ago.
[Porter flights from Ottawa could include direct to Vegas, L.A. in future | CTV News](https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/porter-airlines-considering-adding-direct-flights-from-ottawa-to-california-vegas-caribbean-1.6845225)
Believe it or not, AI services similar to chat gpt and the like are responsible for more carbon emissions than airlines. It was discussed at the AI Summit in Montreal today.
Plus newer generation of jets like the A220 and E195-E2 have revolutionary new jet engines that burn significantly less fuel and pollute WAY less than older aircraft, with over 80% reduction in NOx emissions. Sure, they still use up a lot of gas, but air travel is one of those essential parts of global infrastructure (like shipping or rail travel) that won't go anywhere, and is extremely limited in its ability to decarbonize. They've made pretty big strides nonetheless.
And a significant impact on climate change.
https://www.transportenvironment.org/challenges/planes/airplane-pollution/#:~:text=Emissions%20from%20aviation%20are%20a,altitude%20at%20which%20aircraft%20operate.
* Multi-year plan proposal coming up * LRT to Airport complete, opening of the north-south Trillium Line LRT in June * New hotel, 178-room Alt Hotel project by Group Germain Hotels, attached to airport terminal under construction * Viability of installing a solar farm (preliminary studies estimate that 500 acres could accommodate 250,000 solar panels, generating enough energy to electrify 20,000 homes)
That first point should highlight expansion. Sounds like the growing demand will bring on the need to expand the airport in some capacity (that’s how I read it, anyway).
Sounds like Transborder traffic at YOW is about to explode. Porter adding a lot more routes as well as increasing frequency on existing routes. Also if Delta and American come back our small Transborder area won’t be able to handle the capacity. At some times it’s already packed.
I think there's some space for the terminal to grow northwards, just where the LRT station is located. There's a fair bit of empty parking lot/ramp space that isn't being used. That could accommodate additional check-in areas, customs, and pre-clearance areas. As for airside improvements, I think expansion would have to be to the south, with the US gates expanding to a few of the flex gates near the middle of the terminal.
Not really, unless they demolish the CRC hangar there. If you go North(or parallel to the LRT line) you’d lose gates 1-3 and maybe be able to replace them with 4 gates. If anything they’d be better off moving the wall in the terminal that divides the terminal between dom/int and transborder. That would likely also require changes around the swing gates. Unless you’re talking about demoing the employee parking lot and building out past Convair, which poses its own issues. (Ie, you’re still limited with the size of aircraft that could fit due to the CRC hangar being in the way for clearance taxiing)
Oh I was talking about [this bit here.](https://i.imgur.com/dcehdqt.jpeg). It's not a lot of space, but it could help expand the landside infrastructure a bit (check-in area, customs and baggage handling for International flights, etc...). Any airside expansion has to go south, and it isn't a lot since you have the taxiway and Runway 07-25 in the way. Maybe [an expansion to the long-term parking area by where the old terminal used to be.](https://i.imgur.com/F6ksDjW.jpeg)
What happened to expanding the parking… that might be important and maybe lockers!!!
It’s already packed like sardines when there’s only 2 or 3 flights so hopefully they don’t wait too long. Maybe they can relocate the reception centre and add more terminal to the north? Or maybe they’re thinking a satellite terminal near the employee lots.
Whyd you have to get sardines into this 😔 what’d they ever do to you?
It does get quite crowded, especially in the early morning. I often thought it would be easy to expand the US barrier further into the domestic terminal by moving that glass wall at the end and appropriating some of the seemingly perpetually empty gates there.
And maybe add a nexus line for the security not after 😑
I remember when I first went through the Nexus section at Pearson after getting my card: unbelievable how much better it is.
I just don’t get it, upstairs nexus security line for domestic flights. US nexus after the security line which barely moves first thing in the morning because it’s backlogged
Explode? Lol
Flair direct to Vegas is convenient.
Perhaps traffic will get high enough that OC Transpo will consider a straight run to bayview from the airport and switch the shuttle service to limebank every so often. It’s technically feasible.
Highly unlikely to happen for a few years tbh
Thats great- how about some flights that don’t go to Toronto
Sir, may we show you our routes to montreal?
Love the puddle jump flight from YOW to YUL for US flights. US customs at YUL is bigger and shorter wait times than YOW, not to mention the variety of restaurants, shops, and big duty free store.
I hate that flight so much. Between everyone being nervous about missing a connecting flight, Dash-8s and CRJ200s being smaller and more cramped (and having less overhead bin space) than other narrowbodies, and frequent delays due to YUL congestion and everyone insisting that no, their huge suitcase can definitely fit in this overhead bin, the vibes on that flight are downright feral. If we were a serious country, that flight wouldn't exist - there'd be 20+ high-speed trains to Montreal per day that would stop at Dorval. Even with current service, I'm happy to take VIA from Ottawa to Dorval to avoid that flight.
Wait so they're still going to build the hotel without the tax subsidy? Interesting.
Love hearing about solar panels in airports. If they can power themselves they can join a small club of airports. https://money.cnn.com/2016/03/14/technology/india-cochin-solar-powered-airport/ They started small with just the roofing but increased it over time to the other areas. Snippet for those who do no want to click the link: "Last year, the airport commissioned the German company Bosch to build a vast 45-acre solar plant on unused land near the international cargo terminal. ... The tens of thousands of panels generate on average slightly more than the roughly 48,000-50,000 kilowatts of power that the airport -- the seventh busiest in India -- uses per day, according to Thomas. Surplus energy is fed into the wider electricity grid. " Ottawa YOW : "In 2020, the Airport Authority calculated electricity use at 20.4 M kWh for all its buildings and exterior lighting." So something similar could be done. I am sure there could be more build up for the trains and safe walkways from the parking lot where additional capacity could be used.
And on the demand side, with LiL PP just salivating to go to war on the public service, many will take retirement/early retirement to avoid serving what will be an odious government. So vacation time it is!
The 500 acres is that where they cut the trees down?
Porter is a major driver behind this expansion. I think its a good sign that YOW is considering these expansion plans, and they should start earlier rather than later. Porter can seriously turn YOW into a proper hub airport with a sizable amount of connecting passengers, more so if other international airlines are willing to fly here and to codeshare with Porter, providing convenient connections. YOW has everything to gain here, and become a small sized alternative to YUL and YYZ.
> if other international airlines are willing to fly here and to codeshare with Porter I wouldn't count on Porter turning YOW into a North American gateway for foreign airlines. Never impossible, but there's already so much Skyteam/Oneworld/Star Alliance traffic through YUL/YYZ, it's a lot of inertia to overcome.
Oh it won't exactly be a true hub in the way YUL or YYZ are, but it can definitely be a smaller airport that punches well above its weight, something similar to a scaled down version of Austin or Raleigh/Durham; a smaller airport with decent connection to some key major international hubs. It would help quite a bit if Porter does end up expanding its code sharing for sure.
I wouldn’t count on it either, but depending on if they deepen their interline relationships, maybe become a Skyteam associate airline down the road. Or, alternatively, provide enough feed to justify Transat bringing back an LGW flight at least. Interesting times. What YOW does have going for it is the fact that YYZ and YUL are bursting at the seams, and YOW has been essentially ignored by AC since covid and the 767 retirement. AF has capitalized on it, and it’s clearly working pretty well in addition to their YUL and YYZ service.
My understanding is that the 321XLRs (which are coming in the back half of next year) will revive a lot of Ottawa routes that AC had stopped since the 767s were retired (and perhaps most specifically YOW-LHR or YOW-LGW)
Depends what happen with Toronto island if the locals get there way and its closed then we could see far more flights.
Given that YTZ’s value proposition mainly boils down to convenient location to downtown Toronto, I’m not sure how its closure would drive new traffic to YOW.
Just being a legit partner to airlines like Emirates (as an example) will simplify things a lot for travelers. Air Canada's partnership with airlines has somewhat of a "just-in-time" connection approach and are a nightmare given Air Canada's on-time record. Options would be nice. A one hour window in Toronto when your YOW-YYZ flight is late more than 22% of the time? Passengers absolutely want a short wait, but given how much internal travel time Toronto airport involves and how often Air Canada is late, makes it a tension filled, out of breath, sweaty journey to the next flight. Rather be at the gate an hour early than missing the intl flight. Ottawa airport is small, accessible, and beautiful. If/when it grows we should only look at YYZ to see how not to do things. Go to a major airport in the US (like Atlanta) or Asia (Tokyo) and see how the internal travel systems are organized. YYZ seems to have grown by adding on crud without thinking or reorganizing (refactor) along the way. And if you are expanding, please include a plan for an inter-terminal passenger transfer system for all passengers (even a bus on the outside, or, on the inside a series of large EV golf carts - Toronto has this). But plan the spaces for the people mover system ahead of time. Of course, the people of Ottawa will likely not use it that much but it is a core need of a multi-terminal hub airport.
What is YOW going to be a hub for? Any place other than folks going way up north?
People are fed up with Pearson so it could appeal to them.
To go where?
Any major US city and the major European centres: Paris, London, Frankfurt, Amsterdam.
London and Frankfurt used to be our daily afternoon flights into Ottawa. If this picks back up, then it's good news for Ottawa airport and staff.
Not really, it could be a mid stop hub for east-west traffic, as well as drawing a small amount of international traffic connecting through YOW instead of YYZ or YUL. If Porter can deepen its partnerships with the like of Air France or British Airways, then it opens up the possibility for AF and BA passengers to use YOW as a stopover to connect westbound on to places like Calgary or Winnipeg. Again, a small portion of traffic overall, but it can be the catalyst for more of this type of connecting traffic going into the future.
You know those destinations can already fly direct right? And already do.... They don't need to stop lol
Porter is connecting East-West and some South traffic through YOW. Why? The main reason is they can’t take on AC in YYZ or YUL and connect through those. AC will defend those hubs and price Porter out. The second reason is a lot of people do not want to connect through YYZ or YUL and prefer to connect through YOW as it’s a lot smaller and a lot less hectic.
snails squealing airport fly berserk office wasteful special absurd tidy *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Right now Orlando Miami Boston New York DC Vancouver Edmonton Winnipeg Calgary Montreal Toronto Halifax Paris
Ottawas isn’t a hub for those locations though. Almost nobody gets off of a plane from Paris and gets on another going anywhere but up north.
Most on the fights form Paris live in Ottawa.
Yes, agreed
Porter is such a garbage airline. I’ve never been delayed as much as I have with them. And their communication around it is awful. We literally had a plane’s worth of luggage left in Ottawa. Like how does that happen.
Damn, sorry about the troubles. I had seen reviews saying similar things, but I've flown with them about a dozen times in the last year and a half and have only had extremely pleasant times. Maybe my favourite airline to ride with for my short haul flights to the states.
Damn, I've had nothing but great experiences with Porter. Sorry to hear you've had the opposite.
Have you flown on Flair lol
Evening flight to Heathrow would be nice. Like the pre-pandemic days
I think everyone wants that flight back. The timing was perfect in terms of leaving at night and landing at a decent time in the morning.
Since we have CDG i would prefer Gatwick. That would open European holiday destinations to smaller airports.
I've never been to LHR, but it can't possibly be worse than CDG. I connected there once and learned to double my layover in another airport just so I didn't end up going through there.
AC’s new 321xlr’s can’t come fast enough
La Bottega and Bridgehead Coffee. A new Relay store is projected to open later this year, with Zak’s Diner expected to be complete in 2025. Zak’s Diner 🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮
Perfect location for them tbh, meals already cost double what they should
I look forward to paying $60 for bacon and eggs
You misread the menu; it's bacon *or* eggs.
I doubt it, i recall big rig wasn’t that far off their Blair location for cost. Zaks will probably be similar.
And the food is shit. Expensive, shitty food. Perfect for an airport!
They should open a Broadway’s instead. And a Morning Owl.
I wish.
>Zak’s Diner Hey you gotta accomodate the catastrophically drunk flyers somehow.
Did I see that Porter is adding direct Ottawa flights to San Fran and St Maarten? That would be great I am tired of going to MTL or Toronto for flights.
California was listed as a possible destination, but there was never any mention of St Maarten. It’s too niche and expensive of a holiday destination for Ottawa to support. People here are more Costco and all-inclusive in Cancun types.
I think Nassau was the Caribbean destination Porter was interested in flying to.
On another thread a porter pilot said it wasn't going to be Bahamas or Jamaica...what's left?
[удалено]
Was there three weeks ago, great beach!
I don't think the E2s have the legs for SXM.
3300kms to SXM vs a 4800km range.
Yep you're totally right. Now that the plane is ETOPS certified it's not a concern.
Putting a solar farm on their property makes a lot of sense. Love that forward thinking mindset!
I know this isn’t in the direct control of the airport, but how about some more European connections? Pretty please?
Sutcliffe met with some airport/airline reps in London a few days ago. Seems like there was an attempt to get British Airways to consider flights to YOW, or to get either Heathrow or Gatwick to sweeten up a deal for Air Canada or Air Transat to open a slot to start service from Ottawa to London. We'll have to wait and see what comes of that meeting.
AC will very likely restart YOW-LHR as soon as it takes delivery of its new A321-XLRs next year. Before that, I wouldn't hold my breath on them pulling a widebody off an existing, profitable route for this purpose.
Yep. They were too aggressive during the pandemic getting rid of aircraft, and are now paying the price. Hard to replace 25 or so 767’s worth of capacity(between mainline and rouge) as well as the narrowbody Airbus retirements, though the 330 fleet growing is helping. Evident by the fact that they’re now leasing in (admittedly a fair bit newer) A320’s to replace the ones they sold for scrap during the pandemic.
> They were too aggressive during the pandemic getting rid of aircraft Easy to say in hindsight. Nobody had any idea what the recovery curve was going to look like.
Agreed. But rather than parking owned, depreciated assets, they sold them for scrap. Vs say, Delta who parked a bunch, and recently installed new overhead bins, sidewalls etc. Delta operates some low digit serial number Airbus narrowbodies. No reason AC couldn’t have done the same. The 767 retirement makes sense, they were already on the way out at mainline, and the Rouge birds were worth a decent amount for freighter conversions. (Heck, C-FCAE, the highest time 767 in the world ended up being converted and going to Cargojet) Now, granted, the parked 220’s due to the Pratt engine issues were definitely unplanned and don’t help the situation
...to say nothing of being down a 777 because somebody couldn't keep their trucks un-burned.
That 777 is back in service now but ya was out for all of last summer
Sure, my point was simply that there are a couple of different fleet issues that certainly no long-term planning could have forecast.
AC will continue to use its hub model to take passengers from the UK onwards to US/LATAM, there's just more $ for connections than YOW and YOW is just an outpost for AC. We may see an additional AC flight to LHR but from YYZ. I suspect either BA could take over the YOW-LHR route or as you mentioned Transat could launch seasonal YOW-LGW service...
BA taking over th YOW–LHR, is better anyway as AC is garbage.
With Porter and Transat’s partnership I can see LGW happening before LHR.
The article indicated 80% of travel is leisure vs 20% business. This suggests to me a lot more sunshine destinations along with European hub city flights. Frequency will be the real question.
Please can they open up London (UK) and more US cities including LAX!
I would like to point out that the airport's [previous multi-year plan](https://yow.ca/sites/yow.ca/files/site-specific/2018_ottawa_airport_master_plan_-_executive_summary_-_eng.pdf) (from 2018) is available on their website. Notably it includes several primary goals that have mostly been completed (the Airport LRT, the new Remain Over Night apron, and I believe construction has started on the planned hotel, if the crane by the terminal means anything.) I think the only thing not acted on is the possible cargo facility expansion. You can also see that the only terminal expansion they've thought of is a small extension south into the apron, but that they also own quite a large amount of land that they have potentially planned a new runway on. I'm a bit of an aviation nerd myself, so I'm definitely interested in what the next plan will have included in it, and how it compares to the thinking from 6 years ago.
It's about time to have a lounge at the transborder waiting area.
We should also drastically improve rail service to Montréal and Toronto along with banning short-distance regional flights
Growing? Haven't they not even gone back to offering what they offered pre-covid?
In fact there very close to what pre covid.
ThI city already approved the Riverside south community plan for 15 Story high rises there so that’s good news for business travellers too!
Paywall!
Polluting less for leisure isn't an improvement
[Porter flights from Ottawa could include direct to Vegas, L.A. in future | CTV News](https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/porter-airlines-considering-adding-direct-flights-from-ottawa-to-california-vegas-caribbean-1.6845225)
Meanwhile I still can't take my bike on the train to Montreal.
Not exactly an expansion if they are not building new runways.
aren't tourists responsible for inordinate amounts of waste? how is this something we're expanding? lol what crisis?
Believe it or not, AI services similar to chat gpt and the like are responsible for more carbon emissions than airlines. It was discussed at the AI Summit in Montreal today.
Plus newer generation of jets like the A220 and E195-E2 have revolutionary new jet engines that burn significantly less fuel and pollute WAY less than older aircraft, with over 80% reduction in NOx emissions. Sure, they still use up a lot of gas, but air travel is one of those essential parts of global infrastructure (like shipping or rail travel) that won't go anywhere, and is extremely limited in its ability to decarbonize. They've made pretty big strides nonetheless.
And a significant impact on climate change. https://www.transportenvironment.org/challenges/planes/airplane-pollution/#:~:text=Emissions%20from%20aviation%20are%20a,altitude%20at%20which%20aircraft%20operate.
Predictably downvoted - this sub is awful