Who doesn’t love a bit of airline/airport drama? Airlines and airports obviously work really closely together. Airports are businesses, and their goal is to attract as many destinations and passengers as possible. Similarly airlines want to defend their business and increase/maintain their market share as much as possible.
Continue reading: When Airline and Airport Relationships Sour…
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
It's aboot time someone stands up to Air Canada for their anti-competitive behaviour!
Reminds me of the temper tantrum UA had in Houston when an entirely different airport that they don't even use announced int'l service to Latin America. So what did UA do: cancel their service to NZ that they hadn't even started yet from the airport that they actually use. Incredible.
If the airport has provided Iceland Air with financial incentives that AC doesn't get they have every right to be angry. Nobody likes financing their competition....
Icelandair's model actually works pretty well. Flights from all over the US arrive in Iceland in the AM then shuffle the planes and fly out to all their European destinations. Iceland is Schengen too so on your short layover you clear passport control for most destinations. Leave European destinations shuffle again and get everyone back to the US. Pretty good flight times to a lot of destinations at a reasonable cost. If you have to fly coach it is a reasonable option. Miles earning and burning not great however...
AC actually announced that they were cutting the Jan to Mar flights quite a while ago, got a lot of flack from the business community in Edmonton and then decided weeks, if not months, later decided that it was because of Icelandair. They are just doing a bit of PR, pushing the blame onto the airport.
Typical Air Canada whining. They were so used to being at the Government's teat for so many years, that they forgot what real competition is.
Icelandair is also ultra efficient for stopovers in Iceland. They have a super efficient network to go to the Blue Lagoon or into Reykjavik and then get you back to KEF for your connecting flight.
Todd,
I agree with you, very typical reaction from AC ......
Sad how they blame airport management though
Screw AC. I can never forgive them for effectively kicking SQ out of YYZ and (to a certain extent), YVR.
Without BD at LHR, the Icelandair flight doesn't compete with an AC flight to LHR, except on O&D to LHR/FRA/MUC/VIE/BRU/ZRH. But even that's a pretty big stretch, because I doubt many folks are actually connecting in LHR from one *A to another. Practically, I think it competes not with YEG-LHR-EU, but rather with YEG-YYZ/YUL-EU.
Shoot, it even competes more with YEG-EWR-EU than it does with YEG-LHR-EU, if I don't miss my guess. You need a guy like CF to dig into the actual data though; mine's just an educated guess.
Many airports may sort of operate as a business but are actually part of a local government entity. As a result they sometimes make "business" decisions based on local politics or greed.
This being my home airport I can comment that though our market is small at about 1+ million people, the average income for our province is one of if not the highest of all of North America.
It sucks that AC is pulling service on that route because that route was often packed.
We Albertan's like to shoot ourselves in the foot... Emirates has been trying to operate flights out of YYC for a while now but the relationship between governments is sour
Can you really fault Air Canada for not wanting to subsidize a competitor's route? I sure cant.
I find it hard to believe that Air Canada would seasonalize YEG-LHR if there wasn't at least a bit of financial motivation to do so.
Horse manure.
The Icelandair flight will have almost no impact on AC's operation. YEG-LHR is essentially a point-to-point route for business travellers and some VFR, while YEG-KEF will serve primarily the leisure market. Any business people needing to go elsewhere in Europe will be connecting through FRA/MUC via YYC/YVR/YYZ or will take a one-stop on an American carrier.
AC also commented elsewhere that LHR will be a big loss because of the connections it offers to Asia etc. Who interlines through LHR when there are multiple direct flights by every alliance to every west coast gateway?
This is AC making excuses and using Icelandair as a negotiating tactic, much like UA with Southwest in Houston. The airport spokesperson herself points that out in the article:
“It’s not that Icelandair’s service is making it hard to fill that winter eight weeks because Icelandair isn’t operating at that time.”
If YEG-LHR were financially sustainable year-round, AC would be keeping the flight. End of story.