Despite enjoying a busy year for passenger travel, executives with Hamilton’s airport believe the mothballing of budget airline Swoop will present some challenges in the fall.
John C. Munro International is predicting just over 825,000 travellers will pass through gates in 2023, a year-to-year increase of more than 20 per cent.
That’s comparable to the 955,000 that checked in during 2019 — the highest seen since 2017.
But with Swoop shutting down Oct. 28, airport CEO Kathy Puckering says the airport will see the elimination of some low-cost leisure fares, thus a loss of flyers who gravitated to the cheap offerings.
“We are in a little bit of a holding pattern for the next six months as Swoop does something that is very hard to do … winding down an airline and consolidating it into another business as they deal with labour shortages,” Puckering explained.
The outgoing airline, to be consolidated into parent company Westjet, is also expected to contribute to a reduction in some domestic flights to and from Hamilton as well.
However, the airline said in July it will “sustain the community’s key sun connections,” adding Cancun, Punta Cana, Orlando and Tampa Bay flights in November.
“What we know in Hamilton is there’s more demand for travel than there will be capacity in the short-term,” said Puckering.
“We’re working closely with WestJet at the highest levels … to make sure we are definitely in their longer-term planning.”
There are four other airlines that currently operate passenger service to and from Hamilton: Lynx, Play, Air Transat and Sunwing. The latter is also a subsidiary of WestJet and also expected to similarly be integrated into main airline over the next two years.
Slight decline in cargo business amid 'softening of industry'
The amount of cargo to flow through the Hamilton airport is expected to be down year over year, but still the second-highest year on record for the location.
Some 773 million kilograms of goods are expected to move through John C. Munro in 2023, off roughly 877 million from 2022.
Puckering said recent growth in cargo activity was spurred on by the pandemic, but says that growth is “stabilizing” and looking more like it should have if COVID hadn’t happened.
“So we’re not concerned with the softening we’re seeing this year, it is happening all around us,” she revealed.
The airport is currently the third largest for cargo in Canada just behind Toronto Pearson and Vancouver International.
It is the largest domestic overnight express cargo airport in the country.
E-commerce goods, perishables, manufacturing products and pharmaceuticals are some of major cargo the airport handles through partners Cargojet, DHL Express, UPS, Canada Post, Purolator and Amazon.
Since 1996, about $192 million has been invested by cargo stakeholders generating an estimated 2,700 cargo jobs in Hamilton.
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