Small airports and stops
Posted by Lamespotting on 23 Feb 2009 at 04:28 am | Tagged as: Fredericton, Howto
The Fredericton Airport (YFC) only has 1 permanent tenant, Air Canada. The city is considered to be too small for other airlines to service. In fact, both the Saint John (YSJ) and Moncton (YQM) airports have the same problem. Some have proposed closing the three airports and building a larger one in Sussex. There is another solution that won’t involve closing and rebuilding anything:
Stops.
There is no reason that a plane can’t stop in Fredericton on the way to Moncton or Saint John. The reason they don’t is that in larger markets there is a consumer preference for non-stop flights. Over here, that doesn’t matter as much because most consumers would prefer to have a stop than no service at all. In fact, stops could allow for bigger and better aircraft. Why scrunch yourself up in the seat of a Dash-8 when you could fly in a much more comfortable 737? (with an in-flight entertainment system)
It’s time for the local airports to stop competing against each other and to start working with each other.
Unfortunately, such larger aircraft does not exist in the mix.
Air Canada does not care about covering NB at all – all flights are operated by Jazz.
Westjet covers Moncton and St. John (seasonal) with their 737 service, when they are able to fill their planes with people.
Poor old Freddy is going to live with the Jazz service it gets now!!
In-flight entertainment is always on the flights you haven’t been booked on.
Landing and taking off use much more fuel than cruising. Adding stops means burning much more fuel.
Besides, there’s really no need for multi-stop flights in southern NB. All the major centres are w/in 60-90 minutes of each other, which is a pretty reasonable drive relatively speaking. Can you imagine a major airport every 90 minutes in Southern Ontario?