Airports in Atlantic Canada are facing another “major blow” due to the COVID-19 pandemic after WestJet announced Wednesday that it will soon no longer fly to Moncton, N.B., Fredericton, Sydney, N.S., and Charlottetown and will drastically cut back its service to St. John’s and Halifax.
“It’s a major blow. … Any time you lose a service, that’s very challenging,” said Mike MacKinnon, CEO of the J.A. Douglas McCurdy Sydney Airport.
“It’s not an unexpected situation. I think the writing was on the wall for some time, given the restrictive travel policies, the low passenger demand and some of the other factors involved.”
“We are just finding that the demand is not there,” said Richard Bartrem, WestJet’s vice-president of communications. “The Atlantic Canada bubble makes it tremendously difficult for people to move back and forth to those destinations in Atlantic Canada, and recognizing that we are simply losing a considerable amount of money every day that we’re operating there.”
“So until there is something like a vaccine or a testing regime that allows us to see that bubble reduced or lifted, we’ve got no choice but to make the difficult decision.”
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, only residents living within the four Atlantic provinces — New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador — may travel freely within the Atlantic bubble without the need to isolate. Canadians coming from outside the bubble must self-isolate for 14 days.
WestJet will no longer operate out of the J.A. Douglas McCurdy Sydney Airport in Sydney, N.S., as of Nov. 2. (Tom Ayers/CBC)
The route cancellations mean that the airline will also shutter its operations at the airports in Charlottetown, Moncton, Fredericton and Sydney.
The routes will be cancelled as of Nov. 2, and as a result about 100 jobs will be eliminated. Earlier this summer, Air Canada cancelled 30 routes, most of which were in Atlantic Canada.
WestJet will now only fly three routes within and outside of Atlantic Canada — to St. John’s, Calgary and Toronto — all out of the Halifax Stanfield International Airport.
“The biggest blow to Halifax Stanfield as part of today’s announcement is the reduction of key connections that we have within our own province to Sydney, as well as to our nation’s capital of Ottawa,” said Tiffany Chase, the spokesperson for the Halifax airport.
Tiffany Chase, the spokesperson for the Halifax Stanfield International Airport, said it will be difficult to reestablish the strong network of flights, even after the COVID-19 pandemic is resolved. (Héloise Rodriguez-Qizilbash/Radio-Canada)
“We’ve worked very hard over a number of years to establish a very strong network within our region and to the rest of Canada, the [United States] and Europe. … We expect that it will be very difficult and take quite a bit of time to get some of these services back, if ever.”
Doug Newson, CEO of the Charlottetown Airport Authority, said the cuts don’t come as a surprise.
“We see the numbers coming and going in the airport these days,” he said.
Doug Newson, CEO of the Charlottetown Airport Authority, said the airport has been relying on capital reserves since March, and now the loss of WestJet as a carrier will only reduce revenue further. (CBC)
“We see that WestJet has significantly reduced their schedule to Charlottetown over the past number of months, and the demand is simply not there for them to carry passengers at this moment — given the current travel restrictions and the conditions with the pandemic.”
Both the Sydney and Charlottetown airports have been relying on capital reserves since March. Now the loss of WestJet as a carrier will only reduce revenue further.
“We, along with other airports, are hoping and optimistic that the federal government may provide some sectoral specific relief for both the airline industry and the airports, because it’s certainly needed at a time right now where air travel is coming to a complete standstill,” Newson said.
Nova Scotia Premier Stephen McNeil also called on the federal government to create a national strategy to protect air travel in the region.
“We believe the national government needs to be at the table to recognize that in order for us to recover economically, our greatest success of recovering economically after COVID, will be with a vibrant air service that will include in our region, both Air Canada, WestJet and others,” McNeil said at a news conference Wednesday.
Nova Scotia Premier Stephen McNeil called on the federal government to create a national strategy to protect air travel in the Atlantic region. (CBC)
Newson said the Charlottetown airport does have enough capital reserves to get through a couple of years, and both he and MacKinnon are confident the cuts are only temporary.
“We’re hopeful that as things improve — maybe [as] restrictions get lifted, which we’re hoping will happen — that they’ll be back in service sometime in the future,” MacKinnon said.
“But we can’t predict — I don’t think anyone in 2020 can predict what is going to happen.”
TOKYO (AP) — Japanese technology group SoftBank swung back to profitability in the July-September quarter, boosted by positive results in its Vision Fund investments.
Tokyo-based SoftBank Group Corp. reported Tuesday a fiscal second quarter profit of nearly 1.18 trillion yen ($7.7 billion), compared with a 931 billion yen loss in the year-earlier period.
Quarterly sales edged up about 6% to nearly 1.77 trillion yen ($11.5 billion).
SoftBank credited income from royalties and licensing related to its holdings in Arm, a computer chip-designing company, whose business spans smartphones, data centers, networking equipment, automotive, consumer electronic devices, and AI applications.
The results were also helped by the absence of losses related to SoftBank’s investment in office-space sharing venture WeWork, which hit the previous fiscal year.
WeWork, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2023, emerged from Chapter 11 in June.
SoftBank has benefitted in recent months from rising share prices in some investment, such as U.S.-based e-commerce company Coupang, Chinese mobility provider DiDi Global and Bytedance, the Chinese developer of TikTok.
SoftBank’s financial results tend to swing wildly, partly because of its sprawling investment portfolio that includes search engine Yahoo, Chinese retailer Alibaba, and artificial intelligence company Nvidia.
SoftBank makes investments in a variety of companies that it groups together in a series of Vision Funds.
The company’s founder, Masayoshi Son, is a pioneer in technology investment in Japan. SoftBank Group does not give earnings forecasts.
Shopify Inc. executives brushed off concerns that incoming U.S. President Donald Trump will be a major detriment to many of the company’s merchants.
“There’s nothing in what we’ve heard from Trump, nor would there have been anything from (Democratic candidate) Kamala (Harris), which we think impacts the overall state of new business formation and entrepreneurship,” Shopify’s chief financial officer Jeff Hoffmeister told analysts on a call Tuesday.
“We still feel really good about all the merchants out there, all the entrepreneurs that want to start new businesses and that’s obviously not going to change with the administration.”
Hoffmeister’s comments come a week after Trump, a Republican businessman, trounced Harris in an election that will soon return him to the Oval Office.
On the campaign trail, he threatened to impose tariffs of 60 per cent on imports from China and roughly 10 per cent to 20 per cent on goods from all other countries.
If the president-elect makes good on the promise, many worry the cost of operating will soar for companies, including customers of Shopify, which sells e-commerce software to small businesses but also brands as big as Kylie Cosmetics and Victoria’s Secret.
These merchants may feel they have no choice but to pass on the increases to customers, perhaps sparking more inflation.
If Trump’s tariffs do come to fruition, Shopify’s president Harley Finkelstein pointed out China is “not a huge area” for Shopify.
However, “we can’t anticipate what every presidential administration is going to do,” he cautioned.
He likened the uncertainty facing the business community to the COVID-19 pandemic where Shopify had to help companies migrate online.
“Our job is no matter what comes the way of our merchants, we provide them with tools and service and support for them to navigate it really well,” he said.
Finkelstein was questioned about the forthcoming U.S. leadership change on a call meant to delve into Shopify’s latest earnings, which sent shares soaring 27 per cent to $158.63 shortly after Tuesday’s market open.
The Ottawa-based company, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, reported US$828 million in net income for its third quarter, up from US$718 million in the same quarter last year, as its revenue rose 26 per cent.
Revenue for the period ended Sept. 30 totalled US$2.16 billion, up from US$1.71 billion a year earlier.
Subscription solutions revenue reached US$610 million, up from US$486 million in the same quarter last year.
Merchant solutions revenue amounted to US$1.55 billion, up from US$1.23 billion.
Shopify’s net income excluding the impact of equity investments totalled US$344 million for the quarter, up from US$173 million in the same quarter last year.
Daniel Chan, a TD Cowen analyst, said the results show Shopify has a leadership position in the e-commerce world and “a continued ability to gain market share.”
In its outlook for its fourth quarter of 2024, the company said it expects revenue to grow at a mid-to-high-twenties percentage rate on a year-over-year basis.
“Q4 guidance suggests Shopify will finish the year strong, with better-than-expected revenue growth and operating margin,” Chan pointed out in a note to investors.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
TORONTO – RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust says it has cut almost 10 per cent of its staff as it deals with a slowdown in the condo market and overall pushes for greater efficiency.
The company says the cuts, which amount to around 60 employees based on its last annual filing, will mean about $9 million in restructuring charges and should translate to about $8 million in annualized cash savings.
The job cuts come as RioCan and others scale back condo development plans as the market softens, but chief executive Jonathan Gitlin says the reductions were from a companywide efficiency effort.
RioCan says it doesn’t plan to start any new construction of mixed-use properties this year and well into 2025 as it adjusts to the shifting market demand.
The company reported a net income of $96.9 million in the third quarter, up from a loss of $73.5 million last year, as it saw a $159 million boost from a favourable change in the fair value of investment properties.
RioCan reported what it says is a record-breaking 97.8 per cent occupancy rate in the quarter including retail committed occupancy of 98.6 per cent.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
