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| While WestJet managed to increase ASMs by almost 18% in 2008 Air Canada (seen here at Toronto) reduced mainline capacity by just over 1%. Meanwhile Edmonton and Ottawa are vying for the prize of fastest-growing major Canadian airport, both achieving over 6% growth. |
With the likely exception of Montreal (which has yet to report December traffic data), all of Canada’s top 10 airports managed to achieve traffic growth in 2008 compared with 2007. However, only Edmonton managed to report traffic growth in every month of 2008, though both Ottawa and Victoria saw passenger numbers drop during just a single month.
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| Source: Airport websites |
Edmonton and Ottawa are vying for the prize of fastest-growing major Canadian airport with both achieving greater than 6% traffic growth. Edmonton has reported growth of 6.15% while Ottawa’s growth is fractionally behind at 6.13%.
Air Canada capacity virtually flat; Latin America booming
While WestJet managed to increase ASMs (available seat miles) by almost 18% in 2008, Canada’s biggest carrier, Air Canada reduced mainline capacity by just over 1%. However, thanks to improved load factors, RPMs (revenue passenger miles) improved marginally by 0.1%.
| Region | RPM change | ASM change | Load factor (change) |
| Canada | +1.4% | +1.6% | 81.3% (-0.2) |
| US Trans-border | -9.7% | -10.7% | 79.2% (+0.9) |
| Atlantic | -0.4% | -2.5% | 84.9% (+1.8) |
| Pacific | -2.1% | -4.4% | 84.4% (+2.0) |
| Latin America & Other | +18.2% | +16.4% | 79.7% (+1.2) |
| Total Air Canada Mainline | +0.1% | -1.2% | 82.3% (+1.1) |
| Air Canada Jazz | -4.0% | -1.7% | 72.6% (-1.7) |
| Source: Air Canada | |||
International growth was limited to Latin America where capacity was up over 15%. Domestic capacity was up less than 2%. Transborder traffic to the US was down around 10%.
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