Cutbacks in Alberta

[ckl]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/westjet-calgary-edmonton-flights-cancelled-1.3419130

[deicer]

Isn't it great that Harper used his tenure to make Alberta a one horse town!

[internet]

Has zero to do with Harper.

I understand 3 Q400s heading east. It's the responsible thing for WS to do during this economic period.

[dagger]

It's probably jet capacity, too, being moved East, although with fleet expansion, it's hard to say if this is re-positioning or real growth in the East. Most of the new services announced for Toronto are "last in", meaning there are multiple carriers already offering service. And the Toronto-Los Angeles flight is peak summer only - so presumably more capacity for southern routes in winter. That YYZ-LAX route, for example, is a mid-morning departure from Toronto, two hours after the AA code-share - AA has two daily flights in summer on YYZ-LAX, and Air Canada has seven, including a 787-9 departing an hour earlier that will suck up the high yield market. Going into Boston, there already is AC (jets), Delta (jets) and Porter. AC has the most frequencies, Porter has the unique airport, Delta has a big chunk of the Boston-originating O&D market as a long-time major player there. So I wonder if some of these moves by WS are just stopgaps. I found the YYZ-LAX announcement amusing. It was one of the headliners of the press release, and yet the release offered no start date, or timetable.

[internet]

It feels very last minute and reactive.

BNA? To borrow from Bethune, "who's girlfriend lives in Nashville?"

[DEFCON]

Couldn't WJ redeploy to US destinations by offering super competitive pricing to take advantage of the Canadian Peso and grab American traffic?

[Super 80]

It feels very last minute and reactive.

BNA? To borrow from Bethune, "who's girlfriend lives in Nashville?"

Nashville has money on the table for international and west coast routes.

[Lakelad]

.

Alberta's 2015 job losses worst since early 1980s recession: Statscan

Tue Jan. 26, 2016 - The Globe and Mail
David Parkinson - Economics Reporter

Alberta suffered its worst year for employment losses since the dark days of the National Energy Program and early 1980s recession, revised labour figures from Statistics Canada show.

Statscan’s annual revisions of its national Labour Force Survey data ratcheted up Alberta’s job losses last year to 19,600, from the 14,600 the statistical agency originally reported in its final 2015 survey released in early January, as the province’s energy-driven economy buckled under the severe drop in oil prices.

Those losses exceed the 17,000 jobs Alberta shed in the Great Recession in 2009. It’s the worst year since 1982, when the province lost more than 45,000 jobs, amid the double whammy of a global recession and the notorious NEP, a federal government program that capped prices, raised taxes and dramatically discouraged investment in the oil patch. A deep decline in investment in the sector has again been the key driver of the job losses in the past year.

Alberta ended 2015 with an unemployment rate of 7.1 per cent – up sharply from 4.8 per cent when the year began. It’s the province’s highest unemployment rate in 20 years.

Worse, most of the Alberta revision reflects a downgrade in full-time employment. Alberta lost 51,000 full-time jobs last year, compared with the originally reported 44,000, as its economy has buckled under the severe drop in oil prices.

'The natural resources sector shed 23,000 jobs last year – including nearly 21,000 in Alberta alone.'

.

[Kip Powick]

Economic downturn may be to blame for cars left abandoned at Edmonton airport

The Canadian Press

EDMONTON - People leave a lot of things behind at airports, but in Edmonton it seems that a record number of travellers are abandoning their vehicles.

Heather Hamilton of the Edmonton International Airport says 130 unclaimed vehicles have been found in the facility's parking lot.

Some of them have been there as long as three years and show the tell-tale signs of abandonment — flat tires, missing licence plates and faded paint.

Hamilton suggests the downturn in Alberta’s economy is partly to blame.

She thinks some of them were left there by workers from Ontario, Newfoundland or even Ireland who were working in the northern Alberta oilsands and suddenly lost their jobs or had to move.

Many of the abandoned cars are mid-range family vehicles, but Hamilton says one is a 2014 Chevy pickup truck that's probably worth $30,000.

Another theory is that some of the vehicles may have been left behind by owners who can't afford the parking fees they've been racking up, but airport officials say in some cases they'd be willing to waive the charges just to get the vehicles out of there.