Hello everyone, my name is Alex, and today I wanted to talk about some of the effects
of the worldwide grounding of the Boeing 737 MAX.
Specifically, its impact on Canada and Canadian travellers.
There are 41 Boeing 737 MAXs currently registered in Canada, all of which are MAX 8s.
To begin, here’s a brief timeline of events from this past week.
Sunday March 10th:
The world is shaken by the tragic loss of Ethiopian Airlines flight 302, a Boeing 737
MAX 8.
Following this, the Civil Aviation Administration of China grounds the nation’s fleet of 737
MAXs, setting things in motion for other countries to do the same.
Monday March 11th:
Several airlines begin suspending operations of their 737 MAXs, including carriers like
Aeromexico, Silk Air, and Jet Airways.
Tuesday March 12th:
The United Kingdom bans the 737 MAX from its airspace, forcing Air Canada to cancel two
of its transatlantic flights with the MAX, these being Air Canada flight 860 from Halifax
to London Heathrow, and Air Canada flight 822 from Saint John’s, also going to London
Heathrow.
Later that day, Sunwing Airlines announced that they would be voluntarily suspending
their 737 MAX operations.
In a press release, they stated this was due to “evolving commercial reasons unrelated
to safety including airspace restrictions imposed by some of our partner destinations”.
Wednesday March 13th:
Canada’s Minister of Transport, Marc Garneau, announced that Canada would “restrict commercial
passenger flights from any operator of the Boeing 737 Max 8 or Max 9 variant aircraft.”
With this, the United States made their own announcement, and the 737 MAX was officially grounded worldwide.
In Canada, three airlines operate the 737 MAX.
They are Sunwing Airlines, WestJet Airlines, and Air Canada.
Of these, Sunwing has the fewest, with four 737 MAXs in their fleet.
In their press release, they stated that “We will endeavor to minimize the impact of these
schedule changes, which we believe is achievable given that the MAX 8 makes up less than 10%
of our fleet”.
WestJet has 13 737 MAX 8 aircraft in their fleet, and they’ve stated that “over 92%
of our fleet is operating as usual.
While there may be some interruptions to our schedule as we mitigate the impact of this
decision, you can book with confidence knowing that WestJet continues to fly throughout our
network with the safety of quests and employees at the forefront.”
That was straight from an email I got as a WestJet Rewards member.
Air Canada is currently the largest operator of the 737 MAX in the country, with 24 aircraft.
On the grounding, Air Canada stated that they “are working to rebook impacted customers
as soon as possible but given the magnitude of our 737 MAX operations which on average
carry nine to twelve thousand customers per day, customers can expect delays in rebooking
and in reaching Air Canada call centres and we appreciate our customers' patience.”
So, where are all of Canada’s MAXs now?
For the time being, the aircraft are banned from passenger flights, but airlines in Canada
and the US are still permitted to operate ferry flights with no passengers on board.
For WestJet and Air Canada, quite a few aircraft were operating flights to the US at the time
of the announcement, and were allowed to land, but eventually flew back to Canada,
empty.
Since then, all three airlines have moved their fleets around the country for storage,
maintenance, or refitting purposes.
Sunwing’s four aircraft are all stored at Windsor International Airport, in Ontario.
WestJet’s MAX fleet is spread out a bit more, with:
1 in Toronto, 1 in Hamilton,
3 in Vancouver, 3 in Kelowna,
and 5 in Calgary.
The three in Kelowna are making use of the downtime to get the new 2 by 2 Premium seating
installed, and it’s possible that more aircraft could head there while the grounding is in effect.
Air Canada’s fleet is even more spread out at the moment.
Right now, there’s:
2 in Halifax, 3 in Vancouver,
3 in Calgary, 5 in Trois-Rivières,
5 in Winnipeg, and 6 in Windsor.
Windsor currently has the largest total number of 737 MAXs, with ten on the ground there,
followed by Calgary with eight, and Vancouver with 6.
An important part of picking these locations is that, in one way or another, they all have
maintenance facilities for these aircraft.
By having the airplanes there already, they’re prepared to implement any fixes that Boeing might
issue in the coming weeks, and just get these airplanes back in the air as soon as they can.
For now, Canada’s 41 Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft will not be flying passengers, and the effects
will undoubtedly be felt across all three operators for some time to come.
To cover for their loss of capacity, Sunwing has leased two Eastern Airlines Boeing 767 aircraft.
They still have 39 737-800s operating primarily from Canadian cities to sun destinations,
and it’s not clear exactly where these 767s will operate just yet.
In WestJet’s case, the reduction of 13 aircraft from their mainline fleet of 129 aircraft
is certainly not ideal.
With 3 787-9 Dreamliners now in the fleet though, WestJet has some extra domestic capacity
and some additional flights are already operating between Calgary and Toronto with the Dreamliners.
This helps clear the backlog of passengers but also to reallocate smaller aircraft to
other routes.
The Dreamliners were always meant to operate domestically in March and April for training
purposes.
But before they start their transatlantic flights, the 787s can be very helpful, and
have enough seats to essentially replace two 737s.
For Air Canada, losing 21% of their mainline narrowbody fleet is even less ideal,
however, they do have the largest widebody fleet in the country, with 75 twin-aisle aircraft.
So far, Air Canada has been able to deploy widebody aircraft to cover some of these flights, including
this triple seven, from Vancouver to Honolulu.
However, there aren’t nearly enough spare widebody aircraft to completely replace the
MAX fleet.
In the long term, it’s possible that we could see some aircraft retirements delayed,
as well as more aircraft being leased, depending on how long the situation lasts.
To put things into perspective, the operational loss of the 737 MAX results in over 7,000
seats every day that WestJet, Air Canada, and Sunwing now have to replace by combining
flights, using larger aircraft, rebooking passengers... it’s an operational headache
all around.
Keep in mind, the 737 MAXs all flew multiple flights a day, so that number is actually
several times larger.
All in all, it’s a very undesirable situation for airlines and passengers alike, but potentially
a necessary one in the name of safety.
This is still a developing situation and circumstances could change, so I suggest you go follow me
on Twitter at AlexPYYC for updates as they become available.
Thank you very much for watching, leave a thumbs up if you enjoyed, do consider subscribing
if you haven’t already, and I will see you in the next video.
Until then, take care.