AC summer 2008 schedule

[Spot planes]

Ac announced their summer 2008 schedule:

Western Canada:

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Air Canada is increasing frequencies or capacity on 17 intra-Western Canada routes as well as on routes to eastern Canada. The changes include a new daily non-stop between Saskatoon and Ottawa and adding a second daily frequency between Vancouver and Regina, a third daily flight between Vancouver and Prince Rupert, a third daily flight between Kamloops and Calgary, a fourth daily flight each between Calgary and the cities of Fort McMurray and Victoria, and a fifth daily flight between Edmonton and Fort McMurray and between Calgary and Montreal. In addition, Air Canada will expand to year round the recently added second daily flight from Edmonton to Ottawa and a third daily flight from Calgary to Ottawa introduced with the winter schedule.

Central and Eastern Canada:

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Air Canada is adding new routes and increasing frequencies or capacity on eight routes within Ontario and Quebec and on two routes in Atlantic Canada, as well as adding additional service to Western Canada. The changes include new non-stop daily service between Ottawa and the cities of Saskatoon, Thunder Bay, and Charlottetown. There is also an added daily frequency between Toronto and Sarnia. Other enhancements include a sixth daily frequency each between St. John's, Nfld. and both Halifax and Toronto.

Transborder:

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Air Canada is adding four new transborder routes with daily service this summer and increasing frequencies or capacity on 14 other routes. The new routes are Toronto and Austin, Toronto and Richmond Va. (twice daily), Ottawa and Washington (National Airport) and Calgary and Chicago. In addition to these new routes, Air Canada is increasing service on other routes, including adding a second daily frequency between Montreal and San Francisco, a third daily frequency between Toronto and Charlotte, a second frequency between Toronto and Kansas City and a second weekly frequency between Vancouver and Maui. Finally, Air Canada is adding a 13th daily flight between Toronto and New York. This brings to 24 the number of daily flights Air Canada operates to three New York airports from Toronto (13 to LA Guardia, seven to Newark and

four to Westchester County), providing customers the best choice for travel to the area.

International:

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Air Canada is launching this summer the new international non-stop routes of Toronto-Madrid and Ottawa-Frankfurt. As well, it is improving capacity or frequencies on other routes and these include increasing the number of flights between Vancouver and Seoul to ten a week from seven (pending government approval), boosting service between Toronto and Tel Aviv to daily from five times a week and increasing flights from Toronto to Buenos Aires/Santiago to daily, up from five a week.

[hl7534]

International:

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Air Canada is launching this summer the new international non-stop routes of Toronto-Madrid and Ottawa-Frankfurt. As well, it is improving capacity or frequencies on other routes and these include increasing the number of flights between Vancouver and Seoul to ten a week from seven (pending government approval), boosting service between Toronto and Tel Aviv to daily from five times a week and increasing flights from Toronto to Buenos Aires/Santiago to daily, up from five a week.

The inauguration of Toronto-Madrid non-stop is an extremely good decision, as no other airline has been able to effectively establish a link catering to the business traffic between Canada and Spain in a while.

The frequency augmentation between Vancouver-Seoul is not surprising due to the usual seasonal surge in demand, but I'm sure that Singapore Airlines and Korean Air (the two other airlines on that route) are upset due to the fact that bilateral agreements restrict them from further increasing their frequencies from the current 3x weekly. It can be argued that Air Canada will have a competitive advantage on that route due to the extra convenience factor.

The frequency augmentation between Toronto and Buenos Aires-Santiago further proves that Air Canada's South American operations perform solidly financial-wise. It's interesting that Air Canada has managed to obtain an (effectively) monopoly in the Canada-South America market, which is meaningful, because for some passengers, connecting via the US may not be an option due to visa restrictions. I wonder if LAN Airlines or Aerolineas Argentinas are interested in tapping into the market. They could make the flight work with a mixture of Origin-and-destination traffic, plus connecting traffic to other South American destinations, since both LAN and Aerolineas Argentinas have an extensive network in South America which feeds on to their respective long haul networks.