Yup, YVR took a big hit (as most airports did) in 2009 dropping to only 16.18 million PAX, caused by the global economic downturn. It is taking a bit longer to recover.

I think 2014 will see more solid growth, if January is any indication (PAX +8.9%).

What's interesting is that Fort McMurray is now 16th in number of passengers, with about a million last year. Fort Mac looks set to surpass a whole bunch of cities in a whole bunch of categories over the next few years. I'd be surprised if FM doesn't find itself ahead of St. John's in a couple years in terms of.passengers (SJ is 12th at 1.6M).

Flew in and out of AlbianSands Shell airodrome today. If they added those numbers and Horizon oil sites to McMurrays numbers theyd go way up. 3 CN 737 plus 1 flair air and 2 north cariboo aircraft on the ground this afternoon, plus there is another charter service there everyday as well.

Edmonton's growth is incredible, but it's still amazing how much of a gap exists between Montreal and Edmonton in hard numbers. Unless something catastrophic happens to Montreal's numbers, or something insanely beneficial happens to Edmonton, it looks like we'll be holding the #5 position for a long time to come.

Just for kicks here's the top 9 Airports in growth (pure numbers) over the last 5 years 2008-2013

1. Toronto Pearson - 3,774,638
2. Calgary International - 1,807,471
3. Montreal Trudeau - 1,282,073
4. Edmonton International - 545,895
5. Ottawa/Macdonald-Cartier International - 239,366
6. Vancouver International - 119,424
7. Victoria International - 18,543
8. Halifax Stanfield International - 6,933
9. Winnipeg Richardson International - -86,135

Interesting that YVR has been so slow to recover following the recession. Hopefully the newly expanded parts of the airport aren't sitting too empty :uhh:

Edmonton might show big growth for 2014 since City Centre Airport closed recently (Nov 30, 2013). Any YTD figures?

Vancouver with only +119,424 ?

Ya and were still #2. I think were heading in the right direction finally with all the new Asian flights and strong positive growth numbers in the last month.

yeah, Asian flights is the reason why Montréal is ''lagging''.

There's no doubt YVR will bounce back. It might take a bit of time, but it'll happen.

Vancouver got hit quite hard by the recession with less energy and Canadian finance to prop them up and more exposure to US demand.

With economic growth in BC turning around though, YVR should really pick up, as can be seen in the latest figures showing very high growth and the recent flood of new route announcements.

Great to see YEG growing so quickly too, it's an airport that is really underserved at the moment.

How will the closure of the City Centre Airport affect YEG's PAX? It did 55,854 flights in its final year, so one can assume that's about ~250,000 passengers per year. This should easily push YEG above 7M in 2014. Further, just with regular growth the airport should see an additional 200,000 passengers in 2014. So withe these (very rough) assumptions, it's quite possible for YEG to hit 7.4M for 2014.

You may want to know about this (if you don't already):

Port Alberta:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Alberta

Most of that traffic is going to YEG, some will shift to smaller regional or local airports.

If anything we will see a small bump at YEG.

Which city receives more traffic from Fort Mac, Calgary or Edmonton? Regardless, both can be expected to be strong benefiaries of the rapid growth of FM's airport.

(Christ, I haven't even moved yet and I'm already becoming guilty of Alberta boosterism)

You're enthusiastic about Alberta because you are about to move there... and you should be.

Regarding whether Ed. or Cal. receives more flights from Ft. Mac., I don't really know the answer, but I would be very surprised if Ed. didn't get the most.... WEM and other shopping complexes around Ed. are a shoppers' paradise and of course, Ed. is the closest.

What's wrong with Winnipeg?

Jesus! That is boosterism? Just sounded like talking, not even necessarily positive! :P


The growth is intoxicating when you're new here, especially moving during such an exciting time in the province's history. Boasting is boosterism, which almost every frequent poster on this forum does about their respective regions.

For some reason the local media never really pays any attention to the airport so there is rarely any insight as to trends in passenger numbers, etc.

However, since you asked, I will go out on a limb and say that the decrease likely has to do with there being far less connecting traffic at YWG than there was 15 or 20 years ago. At one point it wasn't that uncommon for people heading across Canada to connect here, but now it's pretty rare... the Sask cities used to feed into Winnipeg pretty regularly, but they have their own directs now to pretty well the same cities you can get to from here.

Other factors might include smaller planes, therefore higher prices (used to be common to see larger jets like 737s, 319s/320s, but not so much anymore... it's almost all tiny regional jets with less incentive for the airlines to offer lower prices since the seats get snapped up by business travellers characterized by inelastic demand), as well as a bit of bleeding off of leisure travellers going south to nearby North Dakota airports.

There's some irony there since one of the reasons often cited in favour of a new terminal was the fact that the old one was supposedly at capacity during peak hours and a new one would allow more flights to more destinations. Well, since the new terminal opened we have received no new services... just a shuffling of the usual sun destinations, and WestJet flights to Saskatchewan that have everything to do with the introduction of Encore and nothing to do with the new terminal. It's kind of sad... Winnipeg is larger than Regina and Saskatoon combined yet our airport doesn't really offer any more destinations than theirs do. Even Edmonton is like Heathrow in comparison to YWG.