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Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse
What's wrong with Winnipeg?
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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.