bats

Buffalo flights seem to be cut back too, I couldn't find any direct flights to Durham Raleigh and I am sure they used to have them. and of course no direct flights to the UK. I'm forever telling myself I should use Ottawa or Montreal, maybe one day I actually will.

OrangeMango

I don't quite understand your suggestion "the next flight going to hub back through Toronto".

To me it would be Billy Bishop with Porter to Montreal, or Halifax, or Ottawa, and then another airline to Europe and return. It would be a code share booking. Ottawa always used to have flights to LHR, at least pre-Covid, same as Halifax, also Montreal for sure.

It's not that complicated or difficult.

It seems more that Porter doesn't allow code share bookings.

dbd33

It is often the case that flights from minor cities, say Ottawa or Buffalo, don't go directly to Europe but to a larger airport ,"a hub", say Toronto or Chicago, where they pick up more passengers or the passengers change to another plane. If the objective is to avoid the airport in Toronto then starting from a minor airport may not help. Setting out from Toronto, flying to a minor airport, and then catching a flight that uses Toronto as a hub, would be rather an own goal. This would be especially true if one's bags were still at the minor airport, something that's a risk whenever bags are moved between aeroplanes.

bats

i was looking up codeshare and what it means and found this
https://www.flyporter.com/en/about-p...eement+2022+03

OrangeMango

I think the main question for politicians and lawmakers is why they want to do so much extra checks for Covid at airports? . It's simply not that the virus gets into Canada that way, the virus is already there and so it is on all countries. Also, why spend a fortune on random testing at arrivals as well?

It would be more prudent to keep queues and times of passengers at airports as short as possible to minimize the risk of infection. Remember, to check the validity of a passport or allow somebody to enter the country only takes somewhere between 25 and 45 seconds, with today's IT equipment.

With the current attitude, the travel and tourism industry won't recover that easily. The current message to international tourists is still "don't travel to Canada", unless you enjoy being in packed queues for 3 hours or enjoy sitting in an overheated airplane on the tarmac for another 2 hours prior to that.....

It's simply shocking how backwards the thinking in Canada is these days and any criticism is either ridiculed or downplayed.

dbd33

I would think tourists landing at the Toronto airport intend to visit Niagara Falls. That's the local attraction. It won't make a lot of difference to the tourist industry if they arrive at Buffalo instead.

OrangeMango

There is a megabus Service from Buffalo Airport to Toronto. The trip is for around 3 hours. Except Tuesday and Wednesday it seems to run daily.

How would US immigration react ( especially in Covid terms) if I would arrive in the US, only to transit to Canada, let's say via JFK, then fly to Buffalo and then take a bus?

Also would there be two "Covid queues" one upon arrival in the US, one at the US-Canada border?

dbd33

No idea. When I recently went to Europe I flew from Toronto accepting that it would be a shambles and allowing a day clear the airport inbound and outbound. I think that, if you're going to live in, or near, Toronto, airport chaos is just something to live with, like terrible drivers and occasional snow. I used Buffalo all the time when I flew on business but, for domestic or pleasure, timing isn't critical so I just roll with the local vibe.