Canadian Airport Thread II

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by Ozabald

Newfoundland has very strong seasonal VFR traffic. That's one of the reasons why communities such as Gander and Deer Lake can support flights to Toronto, Montreal and Calgary (for YDF). Good on Porter to try to capture some of that business with YOW-YDF.

Newfoundland is a big island. YDF is at least an eight hour drive from St. John's. If you are a tourist, and your destination is Corner Brook, Gros Morne, Port-a-Port, the northern peninsula or L'Anse aux Meadows, it makes sense to fly directly to a western Newfoundland airport.

[Ozabald]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Newfoundland is a big island. YDF is at least an eight hour drive from St. John's. If you are a tourist, and your destination is Corner Brook, Gros Morne, Port-a-Port, the northern peninsula or L'Anse aux Meadows, it makes sense to fly directly to a western Newfoundland airport.

Indeed, Newfoundland's geography being the 16th largest island in the world certainly plays a part. However, the Newfoundland diaspora is an unique phenomenon certainly not found to same degree elsewhere in Canada. That drives air traffic to the province; plus the large cohort of Newfoundlanders working in the patch on a rotational basis. As well, the aggressive tourism marketing is driving visitors to Newfoundland.

[Dominion301]

Originally Posted by jamincan

I'm a little bit surprised that Porter is starting a YOW-YDF flight. YUL and YYZ make sense as they are major hubs, but I would guess that YOW is more O&D traffic which can't be that strong between Ottawa and the west coast of NL.

Demand between YDF and YOW in the summertime, while not huge, is stronger than you may think. There’s a lot of Newfoundlanders in Ottawa. If they can get 70 O&D pax on average per flight, they should be able to fill another 50ish with connecting traffic. If F8 flew it purely on O&D out of YKF, surely PD can make it work to YOW. In my opinion, it’s a much surer bet than YYZ-AUS.

Porter are also increasing YHZ-YDF back up to daily like it was two summers ago while YYT-YOW is increasing to 11x weekly.

[Ozabald]

Originally Posted by Dominion301

Demand between YDF and YOW in the summertime, while not huge, is stronger than you may think. There’s a lot of Newfoundlanders in Ottawa. If they can get 70 O&D pax on average per flight, they should be able to fill another 50ish with connecting traffic. If F8 flew it purely on O&D out of YKF, surely PD can make it work to YOW. In my opinion, it’s a much surer bet than YYZ-AUS.

Porter are also increasing YHZ-YDF back up to daily like it was two summers ago while YYT-YOW is increasing to 11x weekly.

There's a significant Newfoundland diaspora in the K/W area; mainly in Cambridge. So, a direct seasonal summer flight from YKF to Newfoundland will work.

[Alexcaban]

Looks as if Avianca has moved YUL-BOG to daily service starting March 29th.

[hehehe]

Looks like PVR is closed due to certain violence? Some flights to other cities also cancelled.

Not a good time for sun flights, and pretty bad for carriers like WS...on top of Cuba and other things

[Dominion301]

Originally Posted by hehehe

Looks like PVR is closed due to certain violence? Some flights to other cities also cancelled.

Not a good time for sun flights, and pretty bad for carriers like WS...on top of Cuba and other things

Ah so that’s why PVR is cancelled today from my local airport YOW.

[casper]

Originally Posted by hehehe

Looks like PVR is closed due to certain violence? Some flights to other cities also cancelled.

Not a good time for sun flights, and pretty bad for carriers like WS...on top of Cuba and other things

I was down in Mexico and arrived back to Canada yesterday, was not in Puerto Vallarta. Several people I was with ended up going on to PVR for a few days, one who is in stuck in the airport while the airport is in lockdown.

Sounds like the police went after one of the drug cartels and the cartels are retaliating by blocking roads around the city, setting cars on fire etc.

[Djeffery]

Saw a couple pics from a cruise ship this morning there where you could see smoke down one of the streets. They said they were on lockdown, not sure if the ship was able to leave or had left or anything else about it.

[thenoflyzone]

So US travel down. Jamaica travel down due to the hurricane last fall. Cuba is essentially a no go. And now Mexico!

Good times!

If something happens in the DR, Canadians will be shit out of luck!

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by thenoflyzone

So US travel down. Jamaica travel down due to the hurricane last fall. Cuba is essentially a no go. And now Mexico!

Good times!

If something happens in the DR, Canadians will be shit out of luck!

Go to Portugal like Ardee and SHH!!!

[AuxTown]

Even the warmest places in Portugal and Spain do not have great temperatures this time of year....15 in Gibraltar today. Bit warmer on the Mediterranean, 20 in Valencia.

So far the best option seems to be Nouakchott, Mauritania at 31 today. Maybe it's time for a visit....

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Go to Portugal like Ardee and SHH!!!

Or Sicily. Or Panama. Or Malta. Or the Canary Islands (my choice, although it's annoying that there are not direct air links from YYZ or YUL).

[hollywoodcory]

Mexico travel isn't down though. The flights are still very full. Only PVR, ZLO and GDL were effected by yesterday's violence.

I also see in this weekend's update, WS even added additional capacity into Mexico from Eastern cities YUL/YQB/YQM/YFC/YOW (particularly CUN) likely replacing Cuba capacity.

[hollywoodcory]

YYC has posted its January 2026 stats

Domestic: 897,170 +2.8%
Transborder: 240,543 -7.4%
International: 238,467 +12.3%

January 2026 total: 1,376,180 +2.3%

[Dominion301]

Originally Posted by hollywoodcory

YYC has posted its January 2026 stats

Domestic: 897,170 +2.8%
Transborder: 240,543 -7.4%
International: 238,467 +12.3%

January 2026 total: 1,376,180 +2.3%

Safe to say transborder was as expected.

YHZ is the next airport to report January 2026 pax stats, and as expected, the transborder numbers are brutal.

January (and 2026 YTD):

Sector / 2026 / 2025 / 2019 / % Change vs 25 / vs 19
Dom: 188,748 / 180,697 / 214,519 / +4.5% / -12.0%
TB: 17,389 / 25,056 / 19,732 / -30.6% / -11.9%
Int'l: 30,134 / 28,344 / 14,292 / +6.3% / +110.8%
TTL: 236,271 / 234,097 / 248,543 / +0.9% / -4.9%

Also to illustrate YHZ's huge seasonal swings, January's traffic is less than half of August 2025 (see the 2025 thread).

[thenoflyzone]

Originally Posted by hollywoodcory

Mexico travel isn't down though. The flights are still very full. Only PVR, ZLO and GDL were effected by yesterday's violence.

I also see in this weekend's update, WS even added additional capacity into Mexico from Eastern cities YUL/YQB/YQM/YFC/YOW (particularly CUN) likely replacing Cuba capacity.

It's not down but it will be, especially at those three you mentioned, if the Mexican government doesn't get a handle on the situation.

Let's see what is going to happen with all the route launches to GDL coming up.

CBC was mentioning that the gang war can spill over to CUN as well. That would be a disaster for the Mexican tourism industry.

[Djeffery]

Originally Posted by thenoflyzone

CBC was mentioning that the gang war can spill over to CUN as well. That would be a disaster for the Mexican tourism industry.

And if gets over to that part, then you are talking big time cruise ports, both on the mainland (Costa Maya) and over on Cozumel. Cozumel is a port stop on a cruise we are on in a month and it's really the only one of the 3 ports I'm excited about going back to. Beach club booked for the day. Hopefully the government is able to get control back soon before the cruise lines start pulling the plug on the Caribbean side, because they take forever to decide to go back to places once they stop going there for safety reasons, as passengers get pretty skittish about it for a while even after the danger has passed.

[msmariner]

Originally Posted by Djeffery

And if gets over to that part, then you are talking big time cruise ports, both on the mainland (Costa Maya) and over on Cozumel. Cozumel is a port stop on a cruise we are on in a month and it's really the only one of the 3 ports I'm excited about going back to. Beach club booked for the day. Hopefully the government is able to get control back soon before the cruise lines start pulling the plug on the Caribbean side, because they take forever to decide to go back to places once they stop going there for safety reasons, as passengers get pretty skittish about it for a while even after the danger has passed.

We might be on the same cruise🤣

[thenoflyzone]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/livest...=1771864927924

Hopefully the link works, but it shows the areas of significant presence of Jalisco New Generation Cartel. They include Cancun.