CANADA: YVR Now Offers More Flights To Mexico

-- The airline will start operating a nonstop service from Mexico City to the Dutch capital in May 2016

-- The route will be operated using the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, regarded as one of the most advanced commercial airplanes in the skies

-- Aeromexico is the only Mexican airline to offer direct flights to Europe

Flying to Mexico from YVR just got easier.

If celebrating the holidays in the snow and gloomy Vancouver rain is “nacho” idea of a good time, Mexico is the perfect, convenient, sunny, destination to escape our winter weather. This past year, about one million Western Canadians vacationed in Mexico. So it would only make sense for Vancouver to strengthen its ties with Mexico, and improve travel between the two countries.

This past week, YVR welcomed Mexico’s global airline, Aeromexico, to Vancouver. The airline will have daily flights between Vancouver and Mexico City, as well as 46 connecting destinations within Mexico and 40 international destinations.

Not only will the partnership with Aeromexico mean more flights to get you beach side and stuffing your face with more tacos than you ever thought possible, but it will also strengthen and advance B.C.’s economy.

“Mexico is currently one of Vancouver’s star tourism markets,” Tourism Vancouver President and CEO Ty Speer said. “The increased flight capacity from Aeromexico will allow us to continue to cater to this important market.”

Speer predicts Vancouver will welcome over 85,000 Mexican and South American guests by the end of the year. In addition to the increase in visitors, the new service will add 160 jobs to the B.C. economy and $9.9 million in Gross Domestic Product, $3.4 million in taxes and $2.9 million in wages to B.C.

“This new service creates opportunities for business, tourism and trade,” said Craig Richmond, President and CEO, Vancouver Airport Authority. “The exciting addition of Aeromexico service opens up the Latin American market with great onward network connections and helps strengthen our position as gateway hub between Asia and the Americas.” Guess it’s time to get packing.

Bienvenido Aeromexico!

CANADA: Winnipeg Airport Passenger Traffic Up 4% For First Six Months Of 2015

Winnipeg Airport celebrated with a special cake the launch of Sunwing Airlines’ new winter seasonal service to Ixtapa in Mexico. The launch of services to Ixtapa has helped the Canadian airport achieve an average growth rate so far in 2015 of 4%, with 3.8 million passengers expected to be handled by the end of the year.

Winnipeg Airport celebrated with a special cake the launch of Sunwing Airlines’ new winter seasonal service to Ixtapa in Mexico. The launch of services to Ixtapa has helped the Canadian airport achieve an average growth rate so far in 2015 of 4%, with 3.8 million passengers expected to be handled by the end of the year.

Winnipeg is situated right in the heart of Canada and is the capital of Manitoba Province. The city is known for its strong mixed culture and numerous festivals, including the famous Festival du Voyageur, an annual 10-day winter festival that celebrates Canada’s fur-trading past and unique French heritage through entertainment, arts and crafts, music, exhibits and displays. One of anna.aero’s favourite sites in the city is The Forks, a historic meeting place in downtown Winnipeg that has a history dating back 6,000 years to the early Aboriginal people. Of course, the best way to get to Winnipeg and experience this history is to fly, and this summer you can reach Winnipeg from 22 non-stop destinations according to OAG Schedules Analyser data.

Passenger numbers up 4%
For the first half of 2015, passenger traffic out of Winnipeg has risen 4%, resulting in just over 74,000 additional passengers passing through the facility when compared with the same time period in 2014. Over the six months between January and June this year, the latter was the best performing so far, seeing an increase in passenger traffic of 5.3%. If the average rate of growth continues for the rest of this year at 4%, Winnipeg can expect to see just under 150,000 extra passengers travel through its facility, resulting in approximately 3.8 million people using the airport in 2015.

SVID says “Excellent”
Winnipeg recorded a SVID score of 0.70 (“Excellent”), placing the airport eighth out of the 50 plus airports that have been analysed so far this year. The result means that Winnipeg sits between Chennai and Belo Horizonte airports respectively. To gain a comparison within the Canadian market, two airports with similar passenger traffic figures to Winnipeg have also been analysed. Halifax Airport scored 3.36 (“Good”), while Ottawa Airport performed better than Winnipeg by scoring a very respectable 0.19 (“Excellent”), the best score recorded so far in 2015 by any airport.

Toronto Pearson remains top
Toronto Pearson remains the number one route from Winnipeg in relation to seat capacity, helped by the airport pair seeing an increase in seat availability of 7.6%. Of the remaining top 12 routes, only Calgary (3.7%), Montreal (9.3%), Saskatoon (0.1%) and Churchill (74.4%) showed growth. The route in the top 12 that has seen the biggest decrease in capacity is Ottawa, which is down -47.6%, meaning that Montreal now takes fifth spot when compared to the same time period last year when it was sixth. One major change to the top 12 is that Denver has fallen from 12th last year to 14th in S15, a result of capacity being shrunk on the sector by -28.3%. Two new airports that have entered the top 12 for S15 are Churchill and London (highlighted in light green), which have replaced Thunder Bay (-42%) and Denver.

Calm Air fastest growing airline
Calm Air (highlighted in light green) is the only airline in Winnipeg that is showing a growth in capacity when compared to the same time period of last year. The regional airline has grown capacity by 47.3%, allowing the carrier to become the third largest airline at the Manitoba airport, overtaking Delta Air Lines (-4.6%) and United Airlines (-42%). Both Air Canada and Westjet are reporting marginal declines in capacity when compared with S14, with the national carrier reporting a fall of -1.0%, while Canada’s largest LCC is reporting a drop of -1.1%. However both remain the top two carriers out of Winnipeg.

CANADA: Vancouver Airport Aspiring For 20 million Passengers In 2015

Vancouver International Airport, Canada’s second busiest after Toronto Pearson, is on track to break through the 20-million passenger milestone in 2015, having handled 19.4 million in 2014, its busiest ever year. Domestic passenger numbers passed 10 million for the first time while trans-border (US) and international demand were also at all-time highs at the airport.

In the first four months of 2015 passenger numbers are up 5.5%, with year-on-year growth in every month. Growth has been particularly impressive in the trans-border market (up 13.1%), with international traffic up 4.3% and domestic demand growing more modestly by just 2.4%. August is the airport’s busiest month while February and November are the quietest months. The airport’s seasonality profile gives it a SVID score of 2.07 (“good”) which compares favourably with Seattle-Tacoma Airport (2.80, also “good”) the major US gateway which is just 200 kilometres to the south, which last year handled almost twice as many passengers as Vancouver.

Air France is newest of 33 airlines operating scheduled flights

Air Canada is the leading airline in Vancouver with 47% of flights and 43% of weekly seats, well ahead of WestJet, who account for 18% of flights and 20% of seats. US carriers United Airlines, Delta Air Lines and Alaska Airlines are the next busiest carriers, with Philippine Airlines and Cathay Pacific Airways the biggest Asian carriers at the airport. Philippine Airlines operates 11 weekly flights from Manila with four offering onward flights to Toronto Pearson and another four to New York JFK. A total of 33 airlines offer scheduled services this July according to OAG Schedules Analyser data. These include British Airways, Condor, Edelweiss Air, Icelandair and KLM from Europe. They were recently joined by Air France, who began non-stop flights from Paris CDG at the end of March.

Chinese carriers are also well represented with Air China, China Eastern Airlines, China Southern Airlines and Sichuan Airlines all offering flights to Vancouver. Both major Japanese carriers (All Nippon Airways and Japan Airlines) are present, as are both major Taiwanese carriers, China Airlines and EVA Air.
Osaka newest destination among 86 served non-stop this July

This July, passengers have a choice of 86 non-stop destinations from Vancouver. These include many international destinations in Asia, Europe and the USA, as well as Mexico. One new destination for 2015 is Osaka Kansai in Japan. Air Canada rouge began five times weekly flights on this route at the beginning of May. The airport’s top 12 routes in terms of weekly seats this July include six in Canada, three in the US and three long-haul routes, of which two are in Asia (Beijing and Hong Kong) and one in Europe (London).

At present, the only additional new service that Vancouver is expecting to welcome in 2015 is the introduction in December of non-stop flights from Mexico City with Aeromexico. These will compete with Air Canada’s existing service.