I've messaged a YEG colleague to get actual numbers and not just anecdotal evidence based on family members flying a few times. Going back to August 1, KLM YEG flights are doing well, a bit better than I expected actually. There are plenty of weeks where it beats the YYC-AMS flight on a load factor per flight basis, but note that YYC is 6-7x weekly over that time period. As we all know, all Canada-Europe ops sees a decline in winter when people instead fly to sun destinations. The YEG-AMS dropoff appears far more significant than the YYC-AMS dropoff on a per flight basis, given that WS is also operating this winter and has high LF alongside KLM. Again, the only metric I have for YEG-AMS is total pax divided by total seats... not yield, not cargo uplift (the YYC flight carries much more) or total revenue. I can't really see KLM's prebookings out of YEG with any real accuracy but my initial guess is that Condor won't actually drag them down too much.
My understanding also is that, on the days KLM does not operate to YEG, the number of YEG pax connecting in YYC for AMS is steadily increasing. I see this a positive in terms of YEG's prospect for an additional frequency to AMS, though when I previously shared a similar concept of people flying YEG-YYC-NRT it was seen as inconceivably positive for Edmonton, so take it as you will. The point remains that on the days KLM does not fly YEG-AMS, Edmontonians going to Europe have to get there somehow.
A lot of words to ultimately say that I am cautiously optimistic about YEG-Europe prospects going forward, be it additional KLM frequencies or a new entrant. At the very least, it's trending in the right direction.
