US Stats Confirm A New Transborder Reality

In this week’s digital edition of Canadian Travel Press, Montreal editor, Mike Dunbar reports that according to data just released by the Department of Commerce in Washington DC, Air Canada operated 2,887 flights between Canada and the United States in April 2013 but that number had plummeted 35.3% to just 1,867 in the same month this year.

Biggest beneficiary was Toronto Island Airport-based Sky Regional, which upped its monthly operation from a mere 43 trans-border flights to 1,095 year-over-year.

That was a massive 2446.5% increase, which prompted an International Trade Administration official to comment, “Sky Regional is just smoking!”

Air Canada rouge also took over some of the operation, going from zero to 366 flights in one year.

Halifax-based contract carrier Jazz Aviation – a subsidiary of Chorus Aviation – lost 11% of its flights from April to April and Air Georgian’s trans-border flying was cut almost 20% in the same time-span.

The Chorus drop comes as little surprise since the company won a $45 million-a-year arbitration battle with AC over its compensation level last November. In cost-cutting mode, Air Canada wanted to slash the Chorus take by almost three points.

According to the stats, WestJet upped its flying by four percentage points and – at 1,647 – operated only 200 fewer flights than the downsized Air Canada main-line operation this April.

For the full story in this week’s digital edition of Canadian Travel Press, click here.