[dunno]

just recently with it being considered unsafe, etc. it's really changed in recent years unfortunately.

Chicago's long had issues with crime. By that token, are people now avoiding New Orleans, Rio de Janeiro, and Cape Town for similar reasons? The crime can definitely deter people from moving, but if a place is otherwise attractive or iconic, tourists tend to not let it get in the way of their travel plans.

 

[Oilers99]

Chicago's long had issues with crime. By that token, are people now avoiding New Orleans, Rio de Janeiro, and Cape Town for similar reasons? The crime can definitely deter people from moving, but if a place is otherwise attractive or iconic, tourists tend to not let it get in the way of their travel plans.

i'm not sure why you are arguing with me - it is a fact less people are visiting Chicago then before.

 

[dunno]

i'm not sure why you are arguing with me - it is a fact less people are visiting Chicago then before.

Because Chicago still is a major destination... was that not clear?

 

[ChazYEG]

Chicago's long had issues with crime. By that token, are people now avoiding New Orleans, Rio de Janeiro, and Cape Town for similar reasons? The crime can definitely deter people from moving, but if a place is otherwise attractive or iconic, tourists tend to not let it get in the way of their travel plans.

Not sure about New Orleans or Cape Town, but the answer for that regarding Rio is a big fat yes!

Just this Monday they released an article in Brazil's largest newspaper with an analysis. From a peak 12M passengers, with 60% international, in 2015, they are down to less than 6M in 2022 with under 25% international, and trending towards 5.5M in 2023, with under 20% international. Tourism has receded to less than 10% of their economic activity in the past decade, after peaking at over 20% in 2016.

Their other airport, which is business focused and only has domestic flights, has increased slightly, from 3 to 4 million passengers per year.

On the other big entry point to the country, São Paulo, their international terminal, opened in 2014 and planned to cope with demand until 2030, is already over capacity and they'll start expanding it soon, doubling capacity, as well as demolishing their oldest terminal and building a brand new domestic wing to add another 40% capacity to their domestic flights. Their goal is to become the largest hub in Latin America and offer connections from all over the region mostly to Africa and Europe, since it will be hard to be the main connector for Canada and the US (that'll probably be Lima).

Now, of course there are more reasons than just safety, but coincidentally, São Paulo has dropped from similar crime rates to Rio in the early 2010s to about 1/4 of the rates they had, and Rio's escalated to 3x what they had just in 2015.

 

[ChazYEG]

Now, mind you, Rio's metro area is about 10x more populous than Calgary or Edmonton, and the city is much better known than either, and yet, YEG has more air traffic than their main airport and YYC has more than both airports combined.

 

[dunno]

I'd say that airport numbers are still not a great barometer as things are still recovering from covid and have yet to settle, although that's interesting about Sao Paolo (I know it's a safer city). Certain places have rebounded better and it depends on geographic, economy, and politics. I think Rio is a bigger transcontinental destination but Sao Paolo is bigger within South America. And that continent is relatively isolated in terms of air traffic anyways, only bested by Africa.

If you look at the Rio-Galeao Airport numbers over the last 20 years, you can see that they haven't recovered from covid yet. In 2019, when Rio was still a quite high crime city, they were pulling in 13.5 million PAX (down a bit from a peak of around 16 million for the Olympics). They dropped to the 4 million PAX range for 2020 and 2021 and are slowly rebounding. It'll be interesting to see what the 2023 and 2024 numbers show. Also, the peak of 16 million in 2016 for Rio-Galeao is in the same range of traffic as at YYC for that same year, and YYC actually rose even higher than Rio by 2018. However, nobody would suggest Calgary is a bigger tourist draw than Rio. Calgary's still a destination, and Banff-Canmore even more so, but the city is also simply better connected to the main centres of air traffic (Asia, Europe, North America) and in closer proximity to high populations of people who have the money to travel by air more easily than in South America. Rio also isn't the main government or business centre for Brazil, and so it loses out on that kind of traffic. There's a lot working against Rio and yet it's still a vaunted destination for tourism.

If you want other examples for better-connected high-crime cities that have rebounded from covid better... Cancun (CUN) had a record high air traffic in 2022 (30 million PAX)

Also Chicago-O'Hare had 68 million PAX last year, up significantly from its 30 million PAX low of 2020 and inching back towards its 2019 number of 84 million. This is higher than Toronto-Pearson's (Canada's busiest airport, obviously) 30 million PAX of 2022 and higher than that airport's peak PAX of 50 million in 2019. Clearly people are still visiting Chicago...

 

[TravellingChris]

The reason for Chicago would be for the UA connections, I don't think getting Flair would really do anything for us.

United connections would not be the only reason to have a Chicago non-stop, the city is a significant destination in its own right. Plus YEG already has access to United's network via Denver.

But in doing Midway Flair could plug into Southwest's network. If Flair and Southwest developed an interline or codeshare deal it would be a significant opportunity. It's ancient history now, but WestJet once inked an extensive codeshare deal with Southwest. Before dumping them for American. Before dumping them for Delta.

So a Canadian carrier like Flair could develop a significant relationship with the third-largest carrier in the United States (domestically, Southwest is bigger than United.)

 

[IanO]

ORD or IAH has to be the priority and both with equal value.

 

[ChazYEG]

I'd say that airport numbers are still not a great barometer as things are still recovering from covid and have yet to settle, although that's interesting about Sao Paolo (I know it's a safer city). Certain places have rebounded better and it depends on geographic, economy, and politics. I think Rio is a bigger transcontinental destination but Sao Paolo is bigger within South America. And that continent is relatively isolated in terms of air traffic anyways, only bested by Africa.

If you look at the Rio-Galeao Airport numbers over the last 20 years, you can see that they haven't recovered from covid yet. In 2019, when Rio was still a quite high crime city, they were pulling in 13.5 million PAX (down a bit from a peak of around 16 million for the Olympics). They dropped to the 4 million PAX range for 2020 and 2021 and are slowly rebounding. It'll be interesting to see what the 2023 and 2024 numbers show. Also, the peak of 16 million in 2016 for Rio-Galeao is in the same range of traffic as at YYC for that same year, and YYC actually rose even higher than Rio by 2018. However, nobody would suggest Calgary is a bigger tourist draw than Rio. Calgary's still a destination, and Banff-Canmore even more so, but the city is also simply better connected to the main centres of air traffic (Asia, Europe, North America) and in closer proximity to high populations of people who have the money to travel by air more easily than in South America. Rio also isn't the main government or business centre for Brazil, and so it loses out on that kind of traffic. There's a lot working against Rio and yet it's still a vaunted destination for tourism.

If you want other examples for better-connected high-crime cities that have rebounded from covid better... Cancun (CUN) had a record high air traffic in 2022 (30 million PAX)

Also Chicago-O'Hare had 68 million PAX last year, up significantly from its 30 million PAX low of 2020 and inching back towards its 2019 number of 84 million. This is higher than Toronto-Pearson's (Canada's busiest airport, obviously) 30 million PAX of 2022 and higher than that airport's peak PAX of 50 million in 2019. Clearly people are still visiting Chicago...

In the case of Rio, specifically, it's not just the PAX, but the overall participation of tourism in its economy. It peaked in 2016/17 at around 22% and is now down to about 13%, while the city's economy has pretty much stagnated, and violence has had a significant impact on it. Crime rates rose substantially after the Olympics, and the total number of visitors, especially international, has dropped pretty much in the same measure. Covid was just the nail in the coffin, at least for the time being.

 

[David A]

Chicago's long had issues with crime. By that token, are people now avoiding New Orleans, Rio de Janeiro, and Cape Town for similar reasons? The crime can definitely deter people from moving, but if a place is otherwise attractive or iconic, tourists tend to not let it get in the way of their travel plans.

I have also heard a lot about Chicago and crime concerns too, much more so than most other big US cities. I am sure there are still some people going there, but I am guessing their tourism numbers are reduced a lot.

 

[dunno]

I have also heard a lot about Chicago and crime concerns too, much more so than most other big US cities. I am sure there are still some people going there, but I am guessing their tourism numbers are reduced a lot.

I mean you can literally look at the data. More people are flying to O'Hare than Pearson, the latter is in a much safer city/region.

 

[David A]

I mean you can literally look at the data. More people are flying to O'Hare than Pearson, the latter is in a much safer city/region.

Well we're really talking apples and oranges here because not all passengers are tourists.

Say if you are just catching a connecting flight, crime in the city (outside the airport) may not matter if you only are in the airport.

 

[dunno]

Well we're really talking apples and oranges here because not all passengers are tourists.

Say if you are just catching a connecting flight, crime in the city (outside the airport) may not matter if you only are in the airport.

Great, so what you're proving is that there's no reliable way to determine these things and @Oilers99's claim that Chicago "isn't the destination it was because of crime" can't really be quantified all that well. In my experience, Chicago rates very highly among people as a city destination not unlike Seattle, San Francisco, DC, Nashville, etc for its cultural offerings. It's perceived as more interesting than any Canadian city aside from Montreal and although the coasts tend to take up a lot of space for travel to the US, Chicago is still a prominent destination.

This conversation is getting silly and not really on topic anymore. We're going around in circles so we may as well just put it to bed.

 

[David A]

Great, so what you're proving is that there's no reliable way to determine these things and @Oilers99's claim that Chicago "isn't the destination it was because of crime" can't really be quantified all that well. In my experience, Chicago rates very highly among people as a city destination not unlike Seattle, San Francisco, DC, Nashville, etc for its cultural offerings. It's perceived as more interesting than any Canadian city aside from Montreal and although the coasts tend to take up a lot of space for travel to the US, Chicago is still a prominent destination.

This conversation is getting silly and not really on topic anymore. We're going around in circles so we may as well just put it to bed.

Correct, I'm not proving anything, I am challenging a statement that seems to give the impression of proving something its not.

I suspect there are more reliable ways to determine these things, but I am going to put myself to bed now.

 

[Windermere]

Well, they're doing it, so we can ponder all we want, but it's still a thing

The fact that they won't be flying the nonstop during July or August is not a good sign.