BA puts Air Canada on notice with direct flights to London
CALGARY -- British Airways, after a 25-year absence, began direct flights between Calgary and London's Heathrow Airport this month, using its long-haul Boeing 777 aircraft.
That's going to put Air Canada, which has been the only regularly scheduled option for anyone wanting to fly from Edmonton or Calgary to London since buying Canadian Airlines in 2000, in the position of having to adjust to some sophisticated competition.
Yesterday, BA's Irish-born CEO Willie Walsh touched down in Calgary for a series of meetings where he highlighted the reasons for BA's return.
"Calgary is a perfect market for us," he said. "It has a strong business market, because the oil and gas industry is doing well, and a strong leisure market. And it's the gateway to the Rockies for travellers from the U.K. and elsewhere."
This is great news for Calgary travellers because BA has an excellent global network, something that is increasingly important to the local business community because of Alberta's growing significance as a global energy player.
Companies such as Talisman Energy, Canadian Natural Resources, Nexen, Petro-Canada, Niko Resources, First Calgary Petroleum, Vermilion Energy Trust all have people flying to and from Europe and beyond.
Then there are the European players that are also interested in Calgary, such as Total Energy, or Italy's Eni and Norway's Statoil, which are waiting to make their marks in the oil sands.
Beyond those who travel for business, Mr. Walsh said Calgary has an attractive premium leisure market in terms of those willing to pay up for a business ticket, even though they are travelling for fun.
No matter how you look at it, the presence of another regularly scheduled carrier on the international scene is good for fares and customer service. Look no further than WestJet for evidence of what one player can do to a market.
Air Canada wasted no time in matching BA's business-class ticket to London of $4,831.32 last week, but anyone who flew out on Air Canada prior to BA's arrival Dec. 1 was paying more than $9,000 for that same business-class seat.
It will take more than lower prices, however, to get people staying with Air Canada.
Brigette Keating, who runs a travel agency in Calgary and caters to the energy sector, sends people all over the world and tries to put them on BA whenever possible.
"It's an exceptional airline," she says. "Their business class offers the sleeper beds, which means my clients are rested when they get to their destination. And the service in economy and economy plus is also very good. It's a totally different airline compared with Air Canada."
Indeed, one of the members of the team accompanying Mr. Walsh said quietly that another of the reasons BA returned to Calgary was because of the antipathy toward Air Canada and the opportunity they saw to take advantage of it.
Call it novelty or call it a better product, but Mr. Walsh said yesterday that its five London flights a week were close to being sold out through December and that a sixth was being added in the new year.
Even as Air Canada is embarking on a program to replace aging planes and refit others, it is still in the position of having to play catch-up. Moreover, its new aircraft will go into service in the bigger markets long before they get to Calgary.
But there is another interesting element to BA's presence in Calgary and that's WestJet. Today, Mr. Walsh and his team are paying what he calls a courtesy visit to WestJet.
BA has tracked what its European passengers do when they want to travel beyond where they land in Canada and found they tend to choose WestJet over Air Canada.
Asked whether a formal alliance with the no-frills carrier was possible, Mr. Walsh said that if there was an opportunity BA, would consider it.
"Anything that provides connectivity for our passengers is a plus," he said.
For WestJet, an alliance with the international carrier would be an excellent way to broaden its reach. Not only is this something WestJet must do because it has virtually saturated the Canadian market and has not had much luck in transferring its brand into the U.S., company founder Clive Beddoe has made no secret of his desire to one day to see WestJet connect to Europe, either directly or indirectly.
And this means Calgary's airline service to international destinations is only going to get better and that's positive for business and leisure traveller alike. That's good news for passengers, but bad news for Air Canada because its monopoly on international travel from Calgary is gone.
