This morning YYC held festivities to celebrate the first Calgary to Tokyo non-stop flight operated by Air Canada. In attendance were dignitaries and officials from YYC, Air Canada, the City of Calgary, Japanese Consulate for Calgary and more.
The event started with a Japanese drumming group from Edmonton followed by speeches from Katherine Kelly of YYC, Stephan Poirier of YYC, City of Calgary deputy mayor Jim Stevenson Minister of Tourism, Parks and Recreation Cindy Ady, Douglas Mitchell of YYC and Calin Rovinescu, President and CEO of Air Canada. Some key notes that were mentioned were that Calgary is only the third city in Canada to have non-stop service to both Europe and Asia, and that Calgary also has the most non-stop service per capita out of any city in Canada. Everyone in attendance seemed quite excited for the new service and Calin Rovinescu was looking forward to be on this first flight. I posed a question to him about the lack of an Aeroplan bonus offer incentive for the flight (since bonus offers encompass my life in this business, I had to ask!) and he pretty much confirmed what I posted awhile back that bookings are strong enough and the fact that the flight is only 3 times per week were the reason why. The ceremonies concluded with Air Canada giving YYC a nice model of an Air Canada 777 and YYC presenting Calin and Air Canada a Japanese Daruma doll of good luck where Stephan Poirier and Calin Rovinescu each painted an eye on the doll.
It is nice to see this service finally come to fruition and hopefully with good support from both the Calgary business community and tourism from Japan this flight will prosper and see more frequencies once the Canada-Japan bilateral agreement allows for it.
For even more details, you can read this press release from YYC
No comments:
Post a Comment