The province of Alberta is Canada’s fourth most populous province, known for its prairies,
mountains, and pickup trucks.
The two largest cities are Calgary and Edmonton, both home to over a million people each.
Interestingly though, these two cities are only 300 kilometres apart, or roughly 3 hours
by car.
And yet, if you look at a flight departure board in either Calgary or Edmonton, you’ll
see a lot of flights to either city, making it the busiest air route within Alberta.
These flights take around 30-45 minutes on average, not including the time needed beforehand
to get to the airport and clear security.
So why are there so many flights between these two relatively close cities?
As of the time of uploading, there are three airlines who fly regular commercial flights
between Calgary and Edmonton.
Naturally, both Air Canada and WestJet fly this route, mainly with Dash 8s.
There’s also Air North, who operates a triangle routing from Whitehorse, Yukon, to Calgary
and Edmonton with Boeing 737s.
There are also a number of charter operators like Canadian North who fly the route as part
of workforce transportation contracts.
Calgary International Airport and Edmonton International Airport are the 4th and 5th
busiest airports in the country, respectively.
In 2019, nearly 18 million people flew through Calgary, while just over 8 million flew through
Edmonton.
That disparity in passenger numbers can be explained by a few different factors.
One of the main reasons is that WestJet’s largest hub and headquarters are in Calgary.
As Canada’s second largest airline, they offered nearly 1000 flights a week out of
Calgary in summer 2019, along with a number of transatlantic flights with their new 787s.
Despite that, they do maintain a number of routes out of Edmonton, particularly with
their ultra-low-cost subsidiary, Swoop.
Similarly, Air Canada maintains a domestic hub in Calgary, along with a few nonstop international
routes like London and Frankfurt.
Given the hub-and-spoke model of both airlines, it’s tricky to maintain an equal level of
service at two cities so geographically close together.
That’s not to say that there hasn’t been some friendly rivalry between the two airports
though.
In 2010, Edmonton International Airport, or EIA, launched a marketing campaign called
“Stop The Calgary Habit”.
According to EIA, an estimated 750,000 Edmontonians would, at the time, make the drive or flight
down to Calgary to catch a flight somewhere else.
In doing so, that would directly affect the performance of Edmonton’s own non-stop routes.
6 months into the campaign, EIA reported that 19,000 fewer Edmontonians drove to Calgary
for a flight, and that a few more routes and frequencies out of Edmonton had been added
as a result.
Edmonton’s also done pretty well for itself when it comes to international traffic.
Icelandair launched nonstop flights from Edmonton to Reykjavik in 2014 with Boeing 757s, and
KLM launched flights to Amsterdam in 2015.
In 2016, WestJet launched seasonal flights to London Gatwick with their 767s, and those
flights ran up until and including summer 2019.
Since the retirement of the 767s though, it seems they’ve shifted those flights to Calgary
instead.
German leisure airline Condor also had plans to launch flights to Edmonton from Frankfurt
in summer 2020 before things went off the rails.
Nevertheless, there’s bound to be a fair bit of connecting traffic through Calgary
still, and aside from commuters or aviation enthusiasts making trip reports, it seems
safe to say that connections are what make this route so busy.
Of course, flying isn’t the only option out there.
For the everyday person driving between Calgary and Edmonton, the Queen Elizabeth II Highway
is most likely what you’d be travelling on.
This 260-kilometre stretch between the northern city limits of Calgary and the southern city
limits of Edmonton is often referred to as the QE2, and is pretty much as direct as highways
can be.
There’s also some coach service between the two cities along with… well actually
that’s about it.
One would imagine that there’d be some sort of rail service, and that’s a topic that’s
been discussed in the province for decades.
Passenger rail service between Calgary and Edmonton existed up until 1985 with CP and
later Via Rail’s Dayliner, until it was discontinued due to declining passenger numbers.
According to a 2008 report, when it comes to high-speed rail in Canada, the Calgary-Edmonton
Corridor is the second most frequently considered route for a high speed rail link after the
densely populated Quebec City to Windsor Corridor.
However, in 2014, another government report found that Alberta’s current population
simply wasn’t large enough to make a publicly-funded high-speed rail system profitable, but that
planning for it should begin, including identifying a route and acquiring land.
The report also didn’t rule out the possibility of a privately-funded system, if investors
were able to raise the capital for it.
In recent years, there’s been a hyperloop proposal between the two cities from a Toronto-based
firm known as TransPod, which could shorten the travel time to 45 minutes.
TransPod signed an MoU with the Government of Alberta in August of 2020, and is working
on securing a route and funding for a 20-kilometre test track between Edmonton’s south end
and Edmonton Airport.
Along with that, just last month, construction firms AECOM and EllisDon announced a partnership
called “Prairie Link”, to begin development on a high speed rail link that would have
350-400 km/h trains between the cities in just over an hour.
Like TransPod, Prairie Link has also signed an MoU with the Government of Alberta.
If that project goes to plan, construction would begin in 2023 and take approximately
seven to nine years.
The completed project would have intermediate stops at Calgary Airport, Red Deer, and Edmonton
Airport.
A theoretical high speed link would be one of, if not the biggest infrastructure projects
in the province’s history.
With the proper transit connections in either Calgary or Edmonton though, and the proper
funding, there is a lot of potential.
For the time being, air travel will still technically be the fastest way to get between
Edmonton and Calgary.
So, who knows, maybe there will be another alternative for Albertans sometime in the
future, and if it means less time on the QE2, I’m all for it!
Thanks very much for watching, and I’ll see you in the next one!