If you follow the Air Canada thread on the Reddit you will have seen rumours swirling around yesterday of major cuts by Air Canada. Those have now come true based on a note being sent to employees last night and it is now starting to appear on Calgary media outlets. Air Canada is cutting their flights from Calgary to major cities like Frankfurt, Los Angeles, Halifax and more. Air Canada cites the ongoing pilot shortage that is affecting many airlines and a smaller fleet than they had in 2019 as the primary reasons for the cuts. The routes will all be cut as of October 30, 2023.
The routes being cut:
- Cancun
- Frankfurt (Although Lufthansa’s subsidiary Eurowings Discover will replace Air Canada on the route as of October 30)
- Halifax
- Honolulu
- Los Angeles
- Ottawa
Letter to Air Canada employees
It appears Air Canada sent this notice last night to employees in Calgary (As posted on Reddit by oxiclean1)
Dear Calgary colleagues,
Tomorrow we will be loading schedule changes for the fall and winter season.
There is no good way to share news that’s difficult to hear, but I want to give you this information directly before you see the changes in our system or hear about them from customers. These changes will significantly impact our operations in Calgary, regrettably, with service suspensions.
I also want to assure you we have a strategy in place to alleviate the impact of these network changes and do not anticipate any layoffs. If applicable, you will hear more from your branch about alternative measures in the coming days. We are suspending our non-stop flights between Calgary and Cancun, Frankfurt, Halifax, Honolulu, Los Angeles, and Ottawa effective Oct. 30.
We will be maintaining our year-round daily service between Calgary and London-Heathrow, nearly 10,000 seats weekly from Calgary, and will continue to offer uninterrupted year-round connectivity from Calgary to Frankfurt and Lufthansa’s global network with codeshare flights on a Lufthansa subsidiary effective Oct. 30.
There are two key factors that we face at present that have forced us to make these difficult decisions. First, our fleet remains smaller than it was in 2019. In addition to that, we face an industry-wide shortage of pilots that has had a prolonged impact on our regional network, and mainline operations have faced constraints as we have substituted our resources to replace certain regional flying.
Second, with fleet and crew resources limited in 2023 and beyond, our priority must be to further strengthen our primary global hubs in Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal, which are our main drivers of revenue and profitability. This will help us defend our position against increased competition from new entrants, existing competitors making strategic moves, and in some cases, even other flag carriers. I understand that it’s frustrating to see that we are adding new routes from our hubs while suspending services from Calgary, but in the current landscape these service suspensions are the right decision.
While this news is disappointing, I want you to know that what we discussed during our March town halls remains true. Calgary is an important market for Air Canada, and we have every desire to fully restore the Calgary network schedule to pre-pandemic levels. We have always known that our recovery would not be linear or easy, and we are operating in a highly dynamic and competitive environment.
I want to thank you for your continued care of our customers, the service excellence you provide every day is central to our rebuild. You should also know we are committed to being transparent while together we navigate our continued recovery amid industry-wide challenges and an evolving competitive landscape.
Sincerely, Mark Galardo
Wrapping it up
Unwelcome news from Air Canada today for travellers in Calgary and Southern Alberta as the airline has taken the axe to some major routes out of YYC. Many of these cuts really surprise me – Ottawa, Halifax, Los Angeles are all very popular destinations out of Calgary. Actually, come to think of it, all of the routes being cut are extremely popular however they can all be connected to via other AC cities. Frankfurt has always been big for AC out of Calgary, especially with cargo which is most likely why Eurowings Discover will take over as it is too lucrative of route to give up entirely.
Overall, this is another chapter in the ongoing trend between Canada’s two major airlines to ‘give up’ territory. We saw WestJet cut back on many routes in Eastern Canada and Air Canada has been pulling back from the prairies. This news should bode well very for WestJet as they fly all the routes being cut with regular frequency and we now may see some Transatlantic AC flyers jump ship to travel on WestJet’s flight to Paris instead of Eurowings to Frankfurt or move to KLM via Amsterdam.