Bearskin

[clunckdriver]

CBC News this morning stated that Bearskin is giving up a large number of their routes, not a good sign for the future of Northern flying into small comunities.

[J.O.]

I read that they were only ceasing their operations out of Ottawa. I'm not sure what stations they served from there other than Waterloo.

[justagigolo77]

On avcanada they are saying it is all routes in/out of Ottawa and there will be some pilot layoffs.

[Wolfdog]

When you can ride a Boeing or Airbus from YYZ to YOW for half the price, who's going to squish into a Lawn Dart? Wrong aircraft. To much money. Can't imagine what they were thinking in the first place???
WD

[Ramjet555]

I used to have to read the Bearskin billboard for that flight every day and booked a few rides on it.
It has at times been full and the news is that while the flights can be full sometimes Bear says that in the big picture it is not profitable ( I read not profitable enough) and dropped it.

I would guess that it generates business for other flights and Bear would have figured all that into their decision. It was also reasonably priced for
Ottawa to Windsor.

[Wolfdog]

Have heard they're pulling out of YXL. Anybody know anything?
WD

[clunckdriver]

This situation begs the question, do we need some re- regulation so as to ensure regular, safe air service to our smaller/northern comunities? Just a small example of what Im getting at; way back when I flew for our largest airline, on a regular basis we flew into small town Canada, we did this as part of the terms set by the Air Transport Board , which were, that if we flew the "gravy runs" between major centers then we had to use some of the revenue from these easy money makers to provide service to small, often northern comunities, what we have now is all the players concentrating on the "easy stuff" {trans continental, big cities} which make money whilst "small town Canada" is becoming more isolated and cut of from the mainstream. Im not proposing the heavy handed regulation of the past, but Joe Blow living in Toronto should understand that there is more to our national air sevice grid than cheap trips between major cities and Florida! Your thoughts?

[Wolfdog]

I've always thought, that since an airplane costs X to fly, every seat should pay a percentage of X. So much, per mile, per seat. Same price across the board. A 200 mile trip should cost the passenger 1/2 the price of a 400 mile trip, and so on. End of story.
WD

[clunckdriver]

Wolfdog, it would be nice if it were that simple, however as one who operates a buisiness twin I can assure you that working out direct and indirect seat mile costs is much more complex than just basing expenses on a straight milage calculation. I have no wish to go into a long ramble on why it is so, but just one example will serve to illustrate: Each day we fly I am billed a flat fee by Nav Canada, regardless of the distance flown or time in the air, thus when we do a positioning fligt from CYOW to CYRP, just six minutes in the air, we are billed the same amount as CYOW to CYWG , then there are different landing fees, fuel costs, overnight costs and so it goes, on top of this there are the economics of scale, a Metro just cant produce the revenue a Q400 can over the same sector length. I do know one thing for sure, we need a Minister of Transport who understands the buisines and the importance of a sound national airports policy, somthing tha Lisa Rait hasnt got a bloody clue about!

[er340790]

Yep - I notice too that the YWG to Flin Flon and The Pas services have also disappeared from their website.

Might explain why Calm Air are 'offering' $850.50 one-way fares on those sectors.... Mind you, Bearskin were close to that.

Actually Bearskin cancelled their AM departure on that route so many times and consolidated it with the PM departure that I gave up on them.... most of the time a 7+ hour drive was actually faster(!)