Airline traffic in Canada is up — just not to the United States
Trans-border traffic to the U.S. dropped for the third month in a row to 1.1 millon, 5.8 per cent lower than in April 2024. Statistics Canada said trans-border passenger counts were also significantly lower (down 12.5 per cent) than the pre-pandemic level recorded in April 2019.
Passengers travelling to the U.S. accounted for 25.5 per cent of the total number of screened passengers in April, down from the 28.1 per cent recorded in 2024.
For the third straight month, all four of the largest airports recorded year-over-year decreases in screened passenger counts for flights to the United States.
Outside of the U.S., however, the number of Canadians travelling internationally by air was 1.4 million in April — up 7.1 per cent over the same month in 2024, and sharply higher (up 19 per cent) than the pre-pandemic level posted in April 2019.
Meanwhile, Canadians are also choosing to travel within the country. Domestic passenger traffic was up by 7.4 per cent to two million in April compared to the previous year. This modestly surpasses the 2019 pre-pandemic level by 1.5 per cent, said StatCan.
Canada's eight largest airports, which includes Montréal/Pierre Elliott Trudeau International, Toronto/Lester B. Pearson International and Vancouver International, posted higher volumes of passenger traffic year over year in April.
Overall, 4.5 million passengers were screened at the eight airports, up 3.6 per cent over 2024 and up 1.9 per cent over 2019.
Ottawa/Macdonald-Cartier International posted the largest year-over-year increase, at 8.6 per cent.
The decline in trans-border travel as Canadians forgo visits to the United States led major airline Air Canada to lower its financial forecast for the year.
Early last month, Air Canada chief executive Michael Rousseau said the noise around tariffs and trade disputes 'definitely had an impact' on the widely reported decline in interest among Canadians for travel to the U.S.
And in late May, WestJet Airlines CEO Alexis von Hoensbroech, speaking at a Calgary Chamber of Commerce event, said summer bookings were down by the 'mid-to-high teens' (percentage wise) from the same period last year.
'When all the rhetoric started around 51st state and tariffs and so on, we could see in our bookings how angry Canadians became,' he said.
Preliminary April data released by Statcan last month showed that Canadians' air travel to and from the U.S. had dropped 19.9 per cent from 2024, while return trips via land were down 35.2 per cent.
Air Canada lowers 2025 outlook as U.S. travel declines
Canadians' return travel from U.S. plunges as Trump tariffs hit
By the end of April, combined return trips from the U.S. (via air and road) had fallen 22 per cent from a year ago.
• Email: dpaglinawan@postmedia.com
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