Canada’s passenger demand has stabilised at between 40% and 45% of 2019 level

Passenger demand in Canada, which saw a significant recovery in August, appears to have stalled in September. During last month passenger numbers through the country’s eight busiest airports were consistently between 40% and 45% of the figures from 2019, when adjusted on a rolling week basis.

Capacity at 58% of 2019 levels in October

Analysis of Cirium Data and Analytics schedule information for all Canadian airports shows that while July capacity figures were at just 33% of the July 2019 level, in August this had risen to 46% and climbed even further to 55% in September. However, the October figure currently stands at just 58%, an improvement of just three percentage points on September. Four weeks earlier the forecast for October had been 61%, suggesting that confidence in a continuing recovery has fallen. The current estimate for capacity recovery for November is 60%.

Looking at airline seat capacity in October, Air Transat will be down 69% compared with October 2019, Air Canada down 47%, Porter Airlines down 46% and WestJet down 33%. There is better news for Swoop which is down just 11%, while Flair is now Canada’s third biggest carrier and has seen seat capacity grow over 180% since October 2019.Looking ahead to next summer, WestJet has demonstrated confidence in the European market by announcing three new routes. From next May/June it plans to operate from Toronto YYZ to Dublin, Edinburgh and Glasgow. Competition will come from Air Transat (Dublin and Glasgow), Air Canada (Dublin and Edinburgh) and Aer Lingus (Dublin).