Ya YVR sick!

March 2019

1,712, 306 +4.8

Domestic 549,149 +1.8

International 735,748 +9.3

Transborder 427,409 +1.6

YTD 4,677,201 +6.5%

We'll start to feel the pinch of the 737 MAX in April for sure.

With both YVR and YUL having posted March figures, it's safe to say AC/WS are dealing with the MAXgate issue pretty well.

I dont think April will be that bad. Traffic dies down a bit compared to March, and AC would have had time to adjust to the Max issue in April.

Still, a near 5% growth for YUL in March is very good, all things considered.

The international (non- US) growth at 9% is especially impressive.

Intersting tidbit: Total international for YUL (1.16 million) was higher than YVR (1.13 million) for the month.

YYC posted its March stats

Domestic - March: 961,952 (+4.6%) 2019 total: 2,770,170 (+6.12)
Transborder - March: 316,607 (+6.0%) 2019 total: 853,721 (+5.2%)
International - March: 193,701 (+1.4%) 2019 total: 556,154 (+1.54%)
March totals: 1,472,260 (+4.5%) 2019 total (so far): 4,180,045 (+5.29%)

It's still nice to see International gains despite losing BA & NRT (both resumed Late March)

Looks like YUL accidentally loaded the April numbers in the YTD totals.

If these numbers are accurate, it looks like April had the same growth rate as March, which reinforces the point I was making earlier.

Leaked YTD total for YUL: 6,232,980

Thus, April might look like this:

1,555,779 +4.8%

Domestic +2.1%
International +7.9%
Transborder +3.5%

It's truly shocking to me that Kelowna is the 10th busiest airport in Canada! Busier than Vagina, SK or Saskatoon or Victoria or Saint John's or Québec City.

I live here, and our population is not that high. WAYYYY more people in Saskatchewan or even our capital city, Victoria.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...orts_in_Canada

Ya and Vancouver harbour is surprisingly high as well.

1. Tourism
2. Isolated destinations tend to have busier airports.
3. Who on earth wants to go to YXE or Vagina.
4. Population has no linear relation to a city's airport pax count.

Not that shocking really

#4 Yes Penticton has 10 times our population but similar passenger numbers.

^^ Plus really the catchment area for the Kelowna airport is the entire Okanagan Valley with a population of almost 400,000

Kelowna Airport is, I believe, the fastest growing airport in Canada at the moment

A lot has to do with how isolated a city is, whether an areas main airport covers a large capture area for customers & if that area has a larger than average tourist draw, for downhill skiing for example.

A large portion of Southern Saskatchewan's population drives outside province to nearest airport that isn't YXE or YQR (people in Lloyd drive to YEG, eastern Saskatchewan to Minot and South West to Great Falls or YYC).

Saskatoon YXE & Regina YQR still have a combined pax of almost 3 million, over similar driving distance area covered by Colon-a's,... I mean Kelowna's.. 2 million pax airport. YXE has probably already moved up to 13th place as of last year for busiest airports in Canada, next to Quebec City's airport.

Quebec as a province has similar ratio of air passengers/population as Saskatchewan, even though YXE & YQR don't have as nearly as high a ratio of connecting travels as YUL, or drive into Quebec from eastern Ontario & Ottawa to use .

I have to admit I was a bit surprised when Kelowna passed Victoria (YYJ) last year.

But don't forget that Victoria also has the Harbour Airport (YWH), which handled 235,000 passengers back in 2017 (not sure about 2018). Then there is the Victoria Harbour Heliport (Camel Point) which also serves tens of thousands of passengers per year. Probably near 300k last year total for the two.

Victoria's air market is ~400,000 (essentially just Greater Victoria), about the same size as Kelowna's. It is not unusual for Capital Region families to catch the ferry over to YVR and fly out of there if they are hitting sun destinations. Even Seattle/Bellingham (less so now). More often than I suspect would ever happen from the Okanagan Valley.

^^ A lot of people in the Okanagan will also drive the 4 hours to Vancouver to catch a flight rather than flying out of Kelowna

Q1 numbers

YYZ - 11.7 million +2.8%
YVR - 6,034,883 +3.0%
YUL - 4,677,201 +6.5%
YYC - 4,180,045 +5.3%
YEG - 1,985,214 +3.0%
YOW - 1,248,517 +1.8%
YWG - 1.1 million +7.5%
...
...
YLW - 554,483 +3.4%
YKA - 101,966 +10.2%

Wow! YWG's growth is actually quite surprising. Hope that can be sustained over the year. YUL is also killing it in terms of year over year PAX growth.

Taking into account the MAX issues, growth at YUL is forecast to slow down for the rest of the year.

ADM released its 2018 annual report this week. In it, they are forecasting a 4.5% growth for 2019, for a total of 20.3 million passengers.

Intl +7.5%
Transborder +4.3%
Domestic +1.5%

That being said, with key additions such as Vienna, Sao Paulo, New Orleans and Raleigh-Durham, and the fact that YUL will reach 20 million for the first time, 2019 will be another milestone year for sure.

Some other key highlights in the 2018 report.

Most of the airports in the National Airport System (with the exception of Fredericton, Gander, Saint John and Thunder Bay) have now issued their annual reports.

In all, Canada's airports collected more than $4 billion in revenue last year.

https://westernaviationnews.com/2019...s/#comment-399

I see Canada has a new airline..........

• Video Link
Air Drake

Breaking News: Westjet to be sold!

Wonder if Onex will be going after Transat next.