Discussions

sounds of it, the current afternoon flight is making money and has high passenger loads. Should things improve economically in Western Canada, we may see the return of the flight and others.

They just said on the news today they are cutting back from 14 flights to 11. Because of the bad economy in Alberta right now.

curlysister said "I find it a little funny that they already plan to eliminate the flight by summer due to 'less business travel'....but the flight only started a couple of weeks ago, so how can they predict that there will be less travel in the future? "

They can predict it because it is the core of what they do. They know what % of folks book a 6 months before a flight and what % buy tickets two weeks before. They can reasonably predict how full a plane in August is going to be

Trevor B said "like this is not isolated to Brandon, but 20 other communities as well. "

but effects 20 other communities as well!! This is a business issue. Just because it is full today doesn't mean it will be a month from now.  
 
This is a business decision not just for Brandon but for WestJet the company. Will they go back to the original plan for all other communities effected? Maybe when they see the business case to bring it back.  
 
The point is WestJet is a for profit company that has bankers that will say no to lending more money for something that does not give a return . WestJet is not like the NDP government that makes millions of $ of promises for University housing and expanding ACC with no idea were the money will come from. They don't have a Banker saying no!  
 
Would be nice to have more air services like they planned . The nice part is we now do have more than we had 6 months ago . Maybe we should be happy with that as it could be less in 6 month . Let hope not but that is always a possibility.

The quiet one said "If oil left, so would westjet... Good thing we as taxpaying citizens are stuck with the millions in terminal upgrades and upkeep on it as well "

You obviously didn't read the article or just quickly scrolled through it. WestJet is cutting back from 14 flights a week to 11 flights a week, then in the summer there will only be 7 flights a week, eliminating a second flight. There not eliminating WestJet from Brandon completely and the terminal upgrades were in the planning stages long before a second daily flight out of Brandon was announced.

Anyone have enough knowledge of airline costs, fuel, Canada/USD impact, etc to come up with a reasonably informed guess-timate of what the Canadian Dollar and price of oil would have to be at at a minimum for a single sold out flight from Brandon to Calgary to be profitable?

The_Young_Man said "    The quiet one said "If oil left, so would westjet... Good thing we as taxpaying citizens are stuck with the millions in terminal upgrades and upkeep on it as well " You obviously didn't read the article or just quickly scrolled through it. WestJet is cutting back from 14 flights a week to 11 flights a week, then in the summer there will only be 7 flights a week, eliminating a second flight. There not eliminating WestJet from Brandon completely and the terminal upgrades were in the planning stages long before a second daily flight out of Brandon was announced. "

in the hope of getting more flights... let's hope that things turn around.... or that's a costly white elephant sitting north of Brandon.

Adam said "Anyone have enough knowledge of airline costs, fuel, Canada/USD impact, etc to come up with a reasonably informed guess-timate of what the Canadian Dollar and price of oil would have to be at at a minimum for a single sold out flight from Brandon to Calgary to be profitable? "

that doesn't make it a good business decision for the company. The decision to come , add or remove services to Brandon is in my opinion not just a decision on making money on a single city or single flights.  
 
If the door was open to reduce expenses to avoid impact on their core business WestJet made that decision. Is it right thing for Brandon no. But it is not about Brandon it is about Westjets profitability. Them cutting flights may be the right decision for westjet to maintain 7 flights a week in the summer for Brandon. No WestJet no air service for Brandon. So then the decision to do what they have done was the right decision for Brandon .  
 
The point others are making is that the 8 million dollar upgrade at the airport will not determine if a airline will come or stay. It is tax dollars at all levels of government that is going to pay for it . Were doe sthis money come from? The citizens of Canada, Manitoba and the City of Brandon. WestJet or any other air line did not sign a contract to stay in Brandon with x air services. I am not even sure that they paid any money to the improvements if they did it was a small amount compared to the public money .  
 
We should be happy with the services they are willing to supply us. Thanks you westjet.  
 
Edited by Oh Canada, 2016-01-21 21:23:49

that they cut the sunday night flight. I fly once a month for work on weekends but must travel after 2 p.m. sunday. Now I will have to continue to fly out of winnipeg and drive home sunday night. Hopefully things turn around.

CBC article today at the link below gives a bit broader perspective on this and other changes Westjet is making in response to the downturn in the Alberta economy. They list a number of other Western Canadian flights that have been effected and also note that new flights are being added in more major centres in Eastern Canada (Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Halifax, Fredericton).  
 
They quote an airline analyst as saying that we could expect many of the reduced/removed routes to return when the economy bounces back:  
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/westjet-calgary-edmonton-flights-cancelled-1.3419130  

1st- West Jet cutting services is a business decision, not one based on travellers  
2nd- to keep and get other air services in Brandon, upgrades were essential  
3rd- yes we the tax payers are paying for the upgrades right now but that money will be recuperated through LANDING FEES that all aircraft must pay.  
 
If you do not believe me ask Trudel??? from the City, she will tell you the airport is making money!  
As much as I am not happy with West Jet right now, a long story, and must fly out of Winnipeg, at least we have service and this service may actually go east at some point.  
Be thankful for what we have! Something is better than nothing.

looking at the westjet site for the spring/summer there are still morning flights available every day, is there a problem with the site or is this all just a rumor that it's going to be gone???

AnimalLover said "1st- West Jet cutting services is a business decision, not one based on travellers   2nd- to keep and get other air services in Brandon, upgrades were essential   3rd- yes we the tax payers are paying for the upgrades right now but that money will be recuperated through LANDING FEES that all aircraft must pay.     If you do not believe me ask Trudel??? from the City, she will tell you the airport is making money!   As much as I am not happy with West Jet right now, a long story, and must fly out of Winnipeg, at least we have service and this service may actually go east at some point.   Be thankful for what we have! Something is better than nothing. "

You say the city is making money thru landing fees makes me wonder if the airport is such a money maker why did it take so long to upgrade the facility?  
 
Now WestJet, how about flying to the east of Brandon to make people happy?

Further look today into the current realities that Westjet is dealing with that may have been connected to the changes in Brandon and elsewhere. From the link below, they've reported 4th quarter 2015 earnings that were down 30% from the previous year... said to in large part be a result of the Canadian dollar and economic weakness in Alberta.  
http://business.financialpost.com/news/transportation/westjet-airlines-ltd-profit-falls-as-alberta-economy-weakens  
 
Their stock is getting hammered today, down around 10% as of now:  
http://www.google.ca/finance?cid=665871  
 
Its not all doom and gloom though as actual revenue was only down 3.6%, the whole 2015 year however saw an overall big rise in profits and they're using the opportunity to increase share buybacks.

like it will be on a 737-700 aircraft. And looks like it won't operate on Sunday, Tues, and Thursday. I asked for more details on Westjet's Facebook page. The new flights are 168 Brandon - Toronto and 167 Toronto - Brandon.  
 
Edited by Trevor B, 2016-02-22 10:23:08

This would be great news !  
 
Or, what's old news is new again. It's like the "old days" when Pacific Western flew 737's directly from Brandon to Toronto.  
 
I hope Air Canada is watching. About fifteen years ago I was flying from Vancouver to Winnipeg. After passing Brandon the Winnipeg airport closed because of weather. The crew said that the plane would be re-routed to Regina and then buses would transport passengers to Winnipeg. When people suggested landing in Brandon, the crew said the runway was too small for the 737 we were in. It did not matter to them that Pacific Western had previously flown the same aircraft in and out of Brandon.  
 

a mock schedule to see the cost. Leaving Brandon on July 4 and returning July 8, for 1 adult $382 for the return flight.  
 
And for Winnipeg to Toronto on those same dates, your looking at $529!!  
 
Edited by Trevor B, 2016-02-22 10:41:14

http://www.westjet.com/guest/en/deals/offers/new-summer-routes.shtml

The release by the city at the link below.  
References the potential to extend beyond the Sept 5 date based on demand:  
http://www.brandon.ca/public-notices-details?var=263  

Excited I am sure it will be used

I messaged Westjet this morning and they were very quick to reply and confirm this great news for the summer. They even went on to say that if the flight is in demand it may even stick around.  
This is great for Brandon travellers as it opens up so many more travel options and connecting flights. Way to go Westjet!! I'm already looking to book something using this direct flight tonight!!

It will be interesting to see how this new addition goes, I always thought it would make more sense to have one in each direction as opposed to two to Calgary.  
 
The Toronto connection gets you access to far more of the world than the Calgary one. Places like Mexico, Orlando, and a lot of major US states become easier to access now, as opposed to only being able to go to Winnipeg.  
 
Just hope they never have the issues like we ran into with our flight in February - they had so many issues that day from broken xrays to staff out sick (or on strike or something like that) as well as an over sold flight.  
 
Not sure how the dozen or so others that could not get on the flight that day made out, but we were compensated for the extra costs we incurred by driving to Winnipeg.  
 
That is one thing I will say, the Westjet staff here in Brandon are pleasant and easy going, and when it is an issue that the airline has caused, Westjet as a whole seems to step up and make it right.

Just got a message from WestJet that flights we had booked from Brandon to Florida via Toronto in December have been changed to stopovers in Calgary. Both ways.

Just did a search on their site and granted I didn't check every single date I checked a lot all the way into February and couldnt find a single case of a direct to (or from) Toronto... always YYC in the middle. Strange that there's been no kind of announcement, hopefully a glitch of some kind?

Oh my god - I have three flights through Toronto booked in January and they've all been rerouted through Calgary (I didn't get an email but I just looked at my WestJet app) - and they've given me horrible wait times in Calgary for the connecting flights. Completely frustrating...and I booked through a 3rd party app so my guess is I'm probably SOL

Looks like they pulled the plug on brandon to toronto!  
 
Thank god i didn't booked my Jan flights yet! cuz the Calgary lay overs are pretty bad

recall reading that the Brandon to Toronto was SEASONAL. So that means summer only. Now as for why it was showing anything other than that in Jan IDK.

direct flights cancelled  
 
http://bdnmb.ca/bdnmb-live/westjet-cancels-direct-flights-from-brandon-to-toronto/423