It’s too early to assess the damage to Canada’s air travel industry as a result of the dozens of flights grounded by severe winter conditions at major European airports, but it’s safe to say it won’t come close to the impact of the volcanic ash-cloud disruptions earlier this year.
“I’m sure there will be some financial impact [to Air Canada ],” said National Bank Financial Inc. analyst Cameron Doerksen. But he said the winter storm “is not as significant an issue” as the volcanic ash cloud that spewed from Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano in April, closing European airspace for five days and costing Air Canada about $20-million in operating profit as a result of flight cancellations.
PI Financial Corp. analyst Chris Murray said it’s premature to gauge the financial fallout for Air Canada but “it may in fact end up not being overly material” to the air carrier.
Air Canada has an extensive network of transatlantic routes to European destinations, including London’s Heathrow, which has been hit particularly hard by the harsh winter weather that blew in over the weekend and nearly closed the busy airport, stranding thousands of passengers.
Rival WestJet Airlines Ltd. of Calgary doesn’t fly to Europe, while Montreal-based charter carrier Air Transat has some European flights but concentrates more heavily on its north-south routes during the busy end-of-year holiday season.
More planes were allowed to fly in and out of Heathrow on Monday, and the usual night-flight restrictions were eased to clear some of the backlog.
But Air Canada was only able to operate about one-third of its normal schedule because of still-tight restrictions. The airline said it was allowed only five flights out of Heathrow to Canada during the day on Monday, with an additional three flights to London from Canada in the evening.
The carrier said the rough weather is also causing “lengthy delays at other northern European airports.”
An Air Canada spokeswoman said in an e-mail message Monday that it was “too early” to comment on the possible financial impact of the grounded flights in Europe.
David Tyerman, an analyst with Canaccord Genuity Corp., said the weather disturbance doesn’t appear to be affecting Air Canada’s stock, which was unchanged on the Toronto Stock Exchange Monday.
“For these kind of companies, such weather-related events frequently don’t have any effect because they’re transitory and relatively rare,” he said.
Steve Lott, a spokesman for the International Air Transport Association, said member airlines are trying to ease the pain for passengers by taking measures such as waiving cancellation fees and making it easier to change travel times and destinations.
“They’re trying to provide some flexibility,” he said.
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