A new study by reputable pollsters Angus Reid is giving Air Canada officials something to think about. It also suggests Canadians are none too happy with airlines in general. An Angus Reid report I spotted today found that 50% of Canadians rate Montreal-based Air Canada as “good” or “excellent,” while 17% gave our biggest airline a rating of “poor” or “terrible.” Things were considerably brighter for Calgary-based WestJet. Angus Reid said its study found that 77% of Canadians rate WestJet either good or excellent, while a measly 4% gave them a poor or terrible rating. That’s a pretty big difference, Read more

We all want to save money on our travel. So here’s a good study; a report from www.kiwi.com that looks at the cost of flights in 80 countries around the globe and comes up with what they call a Flight Price Index. Suffice to say Canada came out as fairly expensive, but not nearly as bad as Belgium. More on that in a minute. For now, here’s background from the Kiwi press release so you can see what they did. “We took into account short-haul and long-haul flights from 80 of the world’s most frequently visited countries and cities, calculating Read more

Calgarians want to go to Toronto, Manila and Delhi. But Torontonians are most interested in looking at flights to Delhi, London and New York City. Cheapflights.ca looked at 11.5 million searches from six major Canadian cities over the last 12 months and came up with some fascinating conclusions about what Canadians are looking for in terms of travel and also what it costs. On a countrywide basis, they found 41% of our searches are for North America, 29% for Asia, 20% for Europe, 5% for Africa and 4% for South America, with just 2% for Oceania. For those searching for Read more

MAUI, HAWAII – Here’s what great people in Hawaii do for visitors. My son was in Hana, Maui for a couple days this week with his girlfriend but didn’t have a car. I drove them down because I love the drive thought he could take a cab to the Hana airport yesterday to get his flight to Kahului and then connect to a flight to the mainland. But we got to Hana and found out they have no cabs there. I should’ve thought of that as it’s a very small town. I’ve been many times but I stupidly didn’t think Read more

First they went low. Now they’re going long. It was just 10 days ago or so that Calgary-based WestJet announced they were going to launch Canada’s first ultra-low-cost air carrier, a move that would see them tangle directly with New Leaf Travel in a sort of Canadian version of Ryanair or Easyjet. On Tuesday, the airline zagged in the opposite direction, announcing it will buy up to 20 Boeing 787 Dreamliners with an eye on grabbing some of Air Canada’s long-distance routes to Asia, Europe and South America. It’s a heckuva plan for a company that still positions itself as Read more

LONDON – I was attending a tourism conference in this southwest Ontario city in mid-spring and walked into a large, industrial space in the Old East Village Area of town. There was a gleaming coffee shop off to one side; the sort of place that looks like one you’d find in Toronto’s West Queen West area or Vancouver’s Gastown. Past that was a lovely, bright grocery store selling lots of local foods and organic products. Behind that was a series of small businesses that it turns out are part of something called the London Food Incubator; a building that charges Read more