Saskatchewan airports optimistic for year ahead despite airline cancellations

After more than a week of flight delays and cancellations, Saskatchewan airports are starting to see a return to normal as the weather reaches milder temperatures.

“We are back to normal, and we are not seeing as many cancellations and delays from other carriers, of course, with the exception of Sunwing who is not flying at all this month,” said CJ Dushinski, vice president of business development for Saskatoon Airport.

On Thursday, Sunwing announced in a Twitter post that they would be cancelling all flights to and from Saskatchewan airports until Feb. 3.

Starting this January, Air Canada’s flights between Saskatchewan and Calgary have also been cancelled so they can focus on their main hubs in Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto.

WestJet has confirmed that they will be stepping up to offer more travel between the cities, and Flair Airlines will be added to the route in May.

“We have received confirmation from WestJet that they are going to be increasing the capacity on those routes, moving from a smaller aircraft to a larger aircraft, so they have certainly picked up quite a bit of seat capacity there that was lost,” Dushinski said.

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Despite airlines abandoning Saskatchewan, the province’s airports are still optimistic about the year ahead.

“There’s certainly opportunity here for our market and in Saskatchewan and I think we’ll see more service and routes announced this year for sure,” said Justin Reves, manager of customer experience for the Regina Airport Authority.

“We’re also hoping this Calgary news, the loss of Air Canada, this opens up the doors for an ultra-low-cost carrier like Lynx … or perhaps Swoop or Flair to return to the market, because it just creates more opportunity for them.”

Saskatchewan airports are still digging themselves out of debt caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, but hope that 2023 or 2024 is the year that operations return to full capacity.

Pre-COVID, the Regina airport used to have about 20 to 25 flights a day, but now, they only have about 15 to 20 flights a day. They are working to bring that number back up this year.

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The Saskatoon Chamber is taking the loss of Air Canada flights as a major hit to the city.

“For the last 20 years, Calgary has been that hub,” said Jason Aebig. “It’s a major loss to our business community and our research community and our academic community as well.”

While Flair and WestJet might be able to take Saskatchewan residents to Calgary, they cannot connect passengers to Air Canada and the rest of the network beyond the city.

“The connectivity piece is lost,” Aebig said.

Without any competition on the runway, Aebig expects fares for flights to increase.

“We are certainly always going to be here flying passengers and having seats available for people to fly,” said Dushinski. “Really what it is, is just the airlines’ decisions on how to fly to structure their networks.”