Despite recent renovations to the Lethbridge Airport, its sole airline provider is dropping its services to a single flight per day.
Clear skies are often a welcome development when discussing weather conditions. However, when discussing an airport that is losing business, clear skies could be a problem.
WestJet intended to reduce the number of flights in Lethbridge to one on Oct. 3, however, they say it has already happened as of this week.
“We’ve got a schedule change that’s kind of started a little bit early, as of Oct. 1,” said Jared Mikoch-Gerke, director of alliances and airport affairs with WestJet.
Blaine Hyggen, the mayor of Lethbridge, says the renovations in recent years were designed to bring business to the airport.
“It’s a chicken or egg thing,” said Hyggen at a media scrum following a WestJet roundtable discussion with business and community leaders.
“If our airport is not ready, are the airlines going to want to come to our community?”
This situation, according to WestJet, is not exclusive to the southern Alberta city.
“All of the markets are kind of starting to see that, but again, we’re looking to offer a schedule that really offers the best connectivity for the largest majority of the type of traveller that we’re seeing from each of these markets,” said Mikoch-Gerke.
WestJet is no longer working with Pacific Coastal, but instead switching to WestJet Encore with a Q400 aircraft.
“We’re more confident that we can deliver a schedule more reliably for the community of Lethbridge.”
The Q400 has 78 seats, while the older planes could only offer 34 passengers a chance to fly. Even so, with WestJet dropping two daily flights, the increased capacity aircraft still only offers approximately two-thirds of the passenger capacity as before.
Year-to-date in 2024, WestJet has flown 35,000 passengers in and out of Lethbridge while offering 66,000 seats. This means just over 50 per cent of tickets are being sold.
Karl Moore is a professor at McGill University in Montreal. He says this move by WestJet was inevitable.
“Just not enough people flying to justify a lot of flights and bigger planes, so it’s just the nature of a smaller town like Lethbridge. It has a lot of charms, but this is one of the negatives,” said Moore.
He says there is certainly a place for smaller airports in Canada, as is evidenced in Abbotsford, Hamilton and other locations because they offer large cities an alternative to flying from the busier centres. However, he says he doubts Calgarians would ever be enticed enough to travel to Lethbridge to fly from here, even if there were more destinations available.
As it is, Calgary is the only destination for Lethbridge air travellers. This results in many people choosing to drive the two hours along Highway 3 to the larger airport.
“That was a big question, you know, it’s easier for me to drive to Calgary,” said Hyggen when discussing the roundtable talk. “So, how can we change that mindset? That comes with, of course, the connection times out of Calgary.”
WestJet says the new schedule from Lethbridge will ensure passengers arrive in Calgary during the best possible times to make their connecting flights to other centres in Canada and the United States.
Despite all concerns, there are those in Lethbridge’s business community who are willing to welcome the change.
“I think we’re excited to see a bigger plane that can hold more people and, just knowing that it’s going to be coming on time, on the days that it’s supposed to, is really exciting for us,” said Dominka Wojcik, senior director of communications with Tourism Lethbridge.
As for the employees at Lethbridge’s airport, no layoffs are expected. According to Cameron Prince, the manager of the airport, there are enough jobs to keep everyone busy and employed.
“For us, we operate the airport more or less the same regardless of how many flights are coming or going,” said Prince.
Keeping a positive mindset, Hyggen says WestJet has promised to keep tabs on the situation and re-evaluate as needed.
“I know a lot of people are going to say, ‘Oh my goodness, are you kidding me?’ But this is going to be monitored.”
“There’s that opportunity to increase traffic in the future,” he said, adding the future of YQL is not directly in jeopardy.