Summary The Canadian domestic market has been slow to recover compared to international flights out of Canada. Over the past few years, some Canadian airlines went bust, while others have struggled to recover beyond pre-pandemic levels. In July, the Canadian government has launched a study about the state of the domestic airline industry.
After the bankruptcy of Lynx Air, the struggles of Flair Airlines, and the consolidation of carriers within Canada , the country’s domestic market is losing out on connectivity and competition, resulting in higher prices and fewer options for consumers. Some airports have either lost all domestic flights or are now dealing with skeleton flight schedules, leaving passengers with few alternatives to travel to the big metropolitan areas of Canada. Down on pre-pandemic levels According to data from the aviation analytics company Cirium , the total number of weekly flights on domestic routes within Canada was still far from the number of weekly itineraries in 2019.
When comparing August 2024 versus August 2019, there are 3,304 fewer weekly flights on domestic routes, resulting in 85,525 fewer weekly seats. The only bright spot was that the weekly available seat kilometers (ASK), indicating total capacity, was up 4.8% year-on-year (YoY), with 87.
7 million more ASKs in August than during the same month in 2019. Cirium data showed that there are a total of 23 airports that have lost all service. In 2019, they all had several weekly flights, includ.