It's crazy how domestically-focused US airports are.

Case in point: PHX: 45 million passengers, a US Airways (now AA) hub, and the only non-US, Canada or Mexico flight is a daily British Airways flight to London.

Then again, only 1/3 of Americans have a passport.

^ Yeah their domestic market is just nuts. On one had I get it, their country is immense and there is little need to travel outside for business purposes, climate reasons etc... on the other hand the world is way too cool not not explore it.

I suppose that's one way to look at it. I think the more telling stat is that YVR serves half the population that YUL does (ie BC Vs. QC) and has more international PAX.

Either way Canadian airports really do have exemplary intl. service, and will likely only continue to grow.

So you thought YYC was the 5th busiest airport in North America in total numbers? What?!

I'm sure if you took North American Travel (CAN/MEX/USA) out of the equation, those numbers would change dramatically. Canada/USA is essentially one land-mass and so we, in a sense, share the same attractions. Canada has a MUCH smaller habitable footprint than the USA ( frozen tundra doesn't count), so it makes sense that the land south of the 49th parallel, with a greater 'usable/habitable' land-mass would make up a lot of the destinations for both Canadians and Americans. It happens to be part of the USA, so more Canadians travel internationally.

It's like saying there are more Danish travelers than French. While it's probably true, it's because Denmark is much smaller than France, so travel is more necessary.

I'd love to see an intercontinental travel chart by airport. To me, that's more useful.

Using those numbers, if you average it out:

Canadians make 1.26 international trips per person / year ( from 3 airports )
Americans make 0.42 international trips per person / year ( from 9 airports )

How many of those 1.26 international trips are to the USA, though?

YYZs numbers seem impressive, until you realize that it's serving an area that US Airports essentially split between 4 airports. JFK, EWR, ATL, ORD. In addition, a LOT of Canadian traffic is routed through that one airport, rather than the 5 or 6 airports along the Eastern United States.

You could say YUL is to French/France as MIA or IAH is to Spanish/Latin America... with YVR the Canadian SFO/LAX duopoly.

To take out North American travel you would also have to take out the Caribbean numbers too which would be huge at YUL and YYZ compared to YVR.

For intercontinental travel I would bet YVR has actually overtaken YUL if not last year, this year for sure.

As for YYZ numbers... I disagree, the numbers are impressive regardless of the comparisons.

I'm not sure I follow. Even if the catchment area of YYZ's international service is half of Canada through connecting flights, that's still a smaller population than the NYC metro.

YUL still pulls ahead of YVR for intercontinental (meaning non US destinations) travel by over 1 million pax.

YUL 2014: 5,933,290
YVR 2014: 4,878,291

I disagree. Traffic to the Caribbean and Mexico need to be removed.

Intercontinental implies outside of North America.

You take out YUL's enormous Caribbean traffic and I bet YVR would be ahead. Certainly this year if not last year.

The problem is YUL (actually every other airport in Canada) doesn't breakdown international into subcategories so the true numbers no one can be sure.

FWIW, I agree with your disagreement.

However the case, we still can't prove that. It's your own opinion. YUL - CDG alone accounts for 1.1 million passengers, that's almost as much as YVR to Europe.

:( Sigh.

http://i.imgur.com/LIE1xhc.jpg

The Greater Moncton International Airport is going to get a new name.

It will be named in honour of the late Romeo LeBlanc, former federal fisheries minister, ex governor general of Canada and former political godfather of the Liberal Party in NB. He was also the father of Dominic LeBlanc, current federal Liberal house leader, current minister of fisheries in the federal cabinet and effectively Justin Trudeau's closest confident and de facto his second in command. Given the political significance of the LeBlanc family to the liberal brand in Canada and in NB, I was expecting this renaming of the airport to happen sometime during Trudeau's first term in office.

The new name will be the Aeroport Internationale du Grand Moncton Romeo LeBlanc Greater Moncton International Airport. :D

Quite a mouthful isn't it. I'm still going to call it the GMIA - it's so much simpler........

The REM will connect to YUL via a tunnel that will pass under the tarmac.

Yes, you are right it is my opinion.

However, just was stating that intercontinental is not just non-USA traffic.

You are correct that the gap for non-US international between YUL and YVR was 1,055,000 in 2015.

However, YTD 2016, that gap is less than 390,000 for the first 6 months of 2016 and shrinking very rapidly.

However, once winter kicks back in and a lot of the Quebec snowbirds flee to the Caribbean, that may change.

TTL International (including transborder) YTD... YVR is widening the gap with YUL and is already larger than the whole difference of 2015.

Most likely. YUL-CUN alone pulled in 390,000 passengers last year. Add in VRA, CCC, PUJ and POP, and I'm sure the number goes above 1 million in total. And there are still 15-20 other destinations in the Caribbean with service from YUL that we aren't counting.

However, all of this is trivial, as no one besides YVR breaks down their international numbers this way. The main reason being that it doesn't matter. An international flight is an international flight. Whether you are flying YUL-CUN or YUL-PEK.

I guess with what I just said, it implies that I agree with your agreement of his disagreement.

And I completely agree as an international flight is an international flight whether you are flying YVR-CDG, YVR-MEX or YVR-SEA.

I think I’s just as simple to say LeBlanc…as I would Pearson or Trudreau:)

A nice honour for a fine New Brunswicker and Acadian!

True, but it wouldn't be as meaningful in Moncton to say that you're driving out to "LeBlanc" as it would be in TO when you say that you're driving to Pearson.

With about 20 pages in the phone book devoted to LeBlanc's, if you said you were taking a drive to LeBlanc, the natural response would be "Which one?" :haha:

^ For cities that have only one airport with scheduled service, it's probably sufficient to just say you're going to "the airport"... no need to be any more specific than that.

LeBlanc not meaningful in Moncton?

Just start using LeBlanc and people will catch on :)

I’m sure Pearson was called ‘Malton’ for a number of years after it was renamed but I never hear that now.

And the ame here at YHZ…..Stanfield is being used more and more.

As long as YYC doesn't get called "Stephen Harper Airport"!