If you talk to anyone who frequents the James Armstrong Richardson International Airport, they’ll likely tell you that it would be a lot more convenient if there were more non-stop flights out of the city.
“It would certainly minimize the stress of connecting flights and delays,” one traveller told Global News.
“Because we travel standby, yes. We’re seeing a lot of flights oversold,” said another.
Non-stop flights to destinations like New York City, Los Angeles and Manila would top the list of requests from frequent flyers, something the Winnipeg Airports Authority would love to see happen as well.
“We know there’s 42,000 people that travel between Winnipeg and New York. We also know that between 35,000-40,000 passengers per year is what it takes to make sure a series of flights is sustainable,” explained WAA President and CEO Barry Rempel. “From there, we’re sitting down now and talking to the carriers, saying, ‘Here’s how much money you can make out of Winnipeg.’ We show them all of our data on average fares, number of people, the seasonality of the route.”
Rempel said the airport’s marketing team is working hard to try and sell carriers on choosing Winnipeg, since it’s really up to the airlines to decide to make it happen.
“Then it comes down to a final thing, and that’s the carrier’s strategy. There are point-to-point carriers and hub-and-spoke carriers,” Rempel said. “Hub-and-spoke carriers prefer to take as large an aircraft as many times as possible between a point, Winnipeg, and a hub, Toronto. They prefer not to overfly that because, by taking that many people to Toronto, they disperse them onto just a series of other flights. It’s a bit of a puzzle.”
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So while Winnipeg seems to have enough people flying to the Big Apple to make it worth an airline’s while, the competition is stiff, since many other cities are making similar pitches.
“Where do we fit on their ranking between cities?” Rempel said. “Most often, when we go to things like what we call our routes conference, where all airlines and airports get together, we’re up against Memphis, Boulder, Spokane, cities in California, because everybody wants more direct service wherever they can possibly get it.”
According to Rempel, whenever a direct flight is added, the number of passengers flying to that destination initially jumps 20-40 per cent, a level which is often sustained.
The Winnipeg Airports Authority held its annual public meeting Wednesday, detailing the fourth straight year of growth in terms of passengers, destinations and flights, buoyed in part by increased traffic for the Canada Summer Games.
Rempel said the next area of growth will see larger airplanes on the busiest routes out of this city.
“For example, the flights to Vancouver are primarily now going to be the airbus aircraft, the same over to Toronto. So although not all destinations are getting more flights, what we’re seeing is the larger aircraft coming back into the market.”
At the moment, there are nearly 60 destinations served by non-stop flights out of Winnipeg. Rempel said the addition of low-cost Flair Airlines and the soon-to-be-launched Swoop have sent a jolt through the industry.
“Flair is less than one half of one per cent of the capacity in and out of this market. But just the fact that they’re here, and that they have put certain pricing into the market, has stimulated the market. It’s been free enterprise at work. Because Flair is here, WestJet and Air Canada are being far more competitive. It looks, at this moment, that all of them are winning.”
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