Canada-U.S. air bookings dropped around 70% for the summer season: Travel Weekly

Advanced bookings between Canada and the U.S. have plummeted by more than 70% for the summer flying season, according to analysis by the aviation data company OAG.

“Future flight bookings between Canada and the U.S. have collapsed,” OAG senior analyst John Grant wrote in a blog post on Wednesday. “Using forward booking data from a major GDS supplier, we’ve compared the total bookings held at this point last year with those recorded this week for the upcoming summer season. The decline is striking — bookings are down by over 70% in every month through to the end of September.”

The crashing U.S.-Canada aviation market comes amid the trade war initiated by President Trump and against the backdrop of Trump’s remarks about wanting to make Canada the 51st U.S. state, which have angered much of the Canadian public.

For April, flyers hold fewer than 300,000 advanced bookings between Canada and the U.S., OAG found, down more than 75% year-over-year. For each month from May through September, advanced bookings are down between 71.4% and 72.2%. 

Cruise promotion takes aim at weak Canadian dollar

The market has also been hampered by the weak Canadian dollar.

Oceania Cruises began offering Canadians a limited-time deal to book
cruises with Canadian dollars without having to factor in the exchange
rate.

The promotion allows Canadian residents to book a limited
lineup of cruises through May 31 using Canadian dollars at par value,
which translates into a discount on more than 60 cruises in 2025 and
2026.

As of March 26, 100 Canadian dollars was the equivalent of $70 U.S. dollars.

The
select Oceania itineraries available with the promotion span the
globe.  For example, one cruise will sail for 16 days from Reykjavik,
Iceland to Montreal, Canada. Another included in the promotion is a
12-day voyage from Athens, Greece, to Rome, Italy. An 18-day cruise
in the South Pacific from French Polynesia to Auckland, New Zealand, and
a 20-day voyage to Antarctica are also available itineraries.

Airline make adjustments on Canada-U.S. routes

So far, airlines have made only relatively minor schedule adjustments, considering the plunge in travel demand.

Between March 3 and March 24, carriers removed more than 320,000 one-ways seats from the U.S.-Canada marketplace for April through October. Though that might sound like a big number, it represents just a 2.6% drop.

The largest cuts are for July and August, at 3.5%.

Some recent route suspensions, as pointed out by the consultancy Ailevon Pacific, include Air Canada’s Vancouver-Washington Dulles route, United’s Los Angeles-Toronto route and WestJet’s routes between LaGuardia and Calgary; Orlando and Edmonton; Orlando and Winnipeg; Palm Spring and Winnipeg; and San Francisco and Vancouver.
Grant said in a recent interview that this close to summer it is difficult for airlines to reschedule routes that are already on sale.

“And perhaps a more important point is, where else would they fly that metal,” he said.

In his Wednesday blog, Grant did say that WestJet appears to be moving some of its canceled U.S. capacity to Europe, having added 114 Europe flights in recent weeks.