VIA Rail

[Urban Sky]

Just to be sure: I have no issue with airlines partnering up with railways for code-share purposes, but they should not have any commercial or competitive control over said railroad, as the railroads‘ interests (to have as many airlines as possible sign up while still confronting any overlapping air operations) and those of the partner airline (to gain a competitive advantage over competing airlines and to protect its profitable routes) certainly don’t align…

 

[crs1026]

I suppose if the government had wanted to exclude other transportation providers or a company that could potentially stand to loose or gain market share, they would have written it into the proposal. Otherwise, they are a publicly traded for-profit corporation and free to offer to invest as they, and their shareholders, see fit.

To join the consortium, one has to assume they accept a fiduciary duty to that project..... in plain language, they have a duty to advance the project and work from a position of protecting the project's interests. Their existing fiduciary duty however is to build their air business and protect their shareholders' investments in airplanes and competition in the air market. I am having trouble reconciling those two fiduciary duties.

If Air Canada is saying to its shareholders, hey we can make more money by investing in VIA than by buying
more airplanes.....well, that would be a wonderful statement. But I'm a bit suspicious about that just yet.

- Paul

 

[Urban Sky]

To join the consortium, one has to assume they accept a fiduciary duty to that project..... in plain language, they have a duty to advance the project and work from a position of protecting the project's interests. Their existing fiduciary duty however is to build their air business and protect their shareholders' investments in airplanes and competition in the air market. I am having trouble reconciling those two fiduciary duties.

If Air Canada is saying to its shareholders, hey we can make more money by investing in VIA than by buying
more airplanes.....well, that would be a wonderful statement. But I'm a bit suspicious about that just yet.

- Paul

If Cadence wins the consortium, I can see lots of litigation from the other two consortiums and also from other airlines. I‘m really not sure what the benefit of adding AC to that consortium is…

 

[dowlingm]

If Cadence wins the consortium, I can see lots of litigation from the other two consortiums and also from other airlines. I‘m really not sure what the benefit of adding AC to that consortium is…

There was a time when if I had been made head of/god-emperor of VIA, I would have canned almost all their customer experience and marketing folks and replaced them with Porter’s, back in the airline’s early days when improving the customer experience was their USP.

I don’t see the same attraction now (and didn’t then) to do similar with the equivalent teams from Air “we’re not happy until you’re not happy” Canada.

 

[Urban Sky]

There was a time when if I had been made head of/god-emperor of VIA, I would have canned almost all their customer experience and marketing folks and replaced them with Porter’s, back in the airline’s early days when improving the customer experience was their USP.

I don’t see the same attraction now (and didn’t then) to do similar with the equivalent teams from Air “we’re not happy until you’re not happy” Canada.

You‘d be surprised how many of my former colleagues in commercial functions (scheduling — pricing — customer relations) came straight from Air Canada. One of them is even CCO today (excellent guy, one of the leading heads behind VIA‘s unprecedented growth since 2014):

Executive team | VIA Rail

VIA Rail’s executive team uses its leadership and expertise to help make VIA Rail’s vision—creating a smarter way to travel—a reality.

corpo.viarail.ca

 

[lead82]

You‘d be surprised how many of my former colleagues in commercial functions (scheduling — pricing — customer relations) came straight from Air Canada. One of them is even CCO today (excellent guy, one of the leading heads behind VIA‘s unprecedented growth since 2014):

Executive team | VIA Rail

VIA Rail’s executive team uses its leadership and expertise to help make VIA Rail’s vision—creating a smarter way to travel—a reality.

corpo.viarail.ca

What unprecedented growth do you speak of? Ridership hasn’t grown much and service is worse now than ever before in terms of speed and frequency. Sure we have some new trains but the tracks are worse for wear and CN and ML are slowing VIA down. Via has gone backwards not forwards over the last 10yrs. New trains wont fix terrible reliability and slower service with less frequency.

Until HSR/HFR is under construction, I see no hope that these proposals are anything more than a federal Liberals pipe dream.

 

[MisterF]

What unprecedented growth do you speak of? Ridership hasn’t grown much and service is worse now than ever before in terms of speed and frequency. Sure we have some new trains but the tracks are worse for wear and CN and ML are slowing VIA down. Via has gone backwards not forwards over the last 10yrs. New trains wont fix terrible reliability and slower service with less frequency.

Until HSR/HFR is under construction, I see no hope that these proposals are anything more than a federal Liberals pipe dream.

Ridership went from 3.8 million in 2014 to 5 million in 2019. That's a 32% increase in 5 years. Via Rail was on a significant growth trajectory before the pandemic got in the way.

 

[Urban Sky]

What unprecedented growth do you speak of? Ridership hasn’t grown much and service is worse now than ever before in terms of speed and frequency. Sure we have some new trains but the tracks are worse for wear and CN and ML are slowing VIA down. Via has gone backwards not forwards over the last 10yrs. New trains wont fix terrible reliability and slower service with less frequency.

Feel free to dwelve through the records of VIA to find a more impressive growth period:

Source: re-post

And on most of the above metrics, VIA is on course to beat pre-Covid levels within a year or 2…

 

[crs1026]

Hoping this isn't paywalled. Canada needs similar legislation

U.S. Accuses Norfolk Southern of Delaying Amtrak Trains

A complaint filed in federal court said Norfolk Southern had “regularly” failed to follow federal law requiring that it give preference to Amtrak passenger trains.

www.nytimes.com

- Paul

 

[lead82]

Feel free to dwelve through the records of VIA to find a more impressive growth period:
View attachment 584784
Source: re-post

And on most of the above metrics, VIA is on course to beat pre-Covid levels within a year or 2…

Interesting. I didn’t realize VIA had grown that much from a low base in 2014. Thanks for sharing these.

 

[kEiThZ]

I get the sentiment against Air Canada's involvement. But I do think given the position of YYZ and YUL, they might actually have genuine interest.

And if they do, it's one of the few interests that will stop the next government from cancelling or downgrading this.

 

[Urban Sky]

I get the sentiment against Air Canada's involvement. But I do think given the position of YYZ and YUL, they might actually have genuine interest.

And if they do, it's one of the few interests that will stop the next government from cancelling or downgrading this.

The problem is not their intentions, the problem is that there is no way for AC to prove to WestJet that they have any good intentions and that HFR will remain agnostic towards airlines. I don‘t see how this could be resolved by any other way than adding WestJet, but that still leaves KLM-AF and other foreign airlines at a disadvantage. So far HFR ticked all of fiscal conservative‘s boxes, whereas involving an ex-monopolist while shutting out truly private airlines raises a giant red flag.

Even if the involvement of AC was cancelled, I don’t see how any airline competitor could be assured that there aren‘t any hidden ways in which AC manipulated HFR. Honestly, I see the Cadence bid as irreversibly poisoned at this point and we can only hope that they won’t get awarded the HFR project…

 

[micheal_can]

The problem is not their intentions, the problem is that there is no way for AC to prove to WestJet that they have any good intentions and that HFR will remain agnostic towards airlines. I don‘t see how this could be resolved by any other way than adding WestJet, but that still leaves KLM-AF and other foreign airlines at a disadvantage. So far HFR ticks all of fiscal conservative‘s boxes, whereas involving an ex-monopolist while shutting out truly private airlines raises a giant red flag.

Even if the involvement of AC was cancelled, I don’t see how any airline competitor could be assured that there aren‘t any hidden ways in which AC manipulated HFR. Honestly, I see the Cadence bid as irreversibly poisoned at this point and we can only hope that they won’t get awarded the HFR project…

How could it be manipulated in such a way that it would be bad for consumers? Faster trans?Lower fares? No baggage fees? Good food? Easy booking website?

Seriously, what could HFR do that would be bad for consumers and bad for other airlines?

It is time rail travel competes with air travel. Along the Corridor, they can.

 

[cplchanb]

How could it be manipulated in such a way that it would be bad for consumers? Faster trans?Lower fares? No baggage fees? Good food? Easy booking website?

Seriously, what could HFR do that would be bad for consumers and bad for other airlines?

It is time rail travel competes with air travel. Along the Corridor, they can.

if anything the potential kickbacks to AC as the partner will for sure rile up WJ and they will sue this as anti competition. optically this just screams conflict of interest no matter how clean they claim themselves to be.

 

[Urban Sky]

if anything the potential kickbacks to AC as the partner will for sure rile up WJ and they will sue this as anti competition. optically this just screams conflict of interest no matter how clean they claim themselves to be.

I‘m really puzzled as to how anyone at Cadence thought that bringing AC on board was a good way to promote their bid. The timing of disclosing this alliance (i.e., after the bids have been submitted) surely suggests that they themselves know that this looks rather fishy…