Air Canada said it had, over the Easter weekend, transported more than 100,000 customers in a single day, a first since the start of the pandemic.
“We had the great pleasure of welcoming 100,701 passengers on board our aircraft on April 15, 2022, and the volume of travellers is steadily increasing,” said Kevin O’Connor, vice president of network operations control, whose staff manage the day-to-day operations at Air Canada.
He believes that Air Canada has recovered from the effects of COVID-19 “operationally” and that the airline “is ready to transport its customers safely and in comfort during the busy summer period ahead of us”.
The last time Air Canada carried more than 100,000 passengers in a day was on March 13, 2020. During the pandemic, the volume of passengers dropped until it reached 2175 passengers on April 23, 2020, due to the almost complete paralysis of global air transport. In 2019, before the pandemic, Air Canada carried an average of nearly 150,000 passengers each day and recorded a record 187,000 customers on August 16, 2019.
Tourism picks up despite uncertainties
This return to a more normal volume of business at Air Canada confirms a trend already documented by Statistics Canada.
According to the latest available data, in January 2022 there were 2.6 million air travellers in Canada, a number that has more than tripled (+227%) in 12 months despite the fifth wave of COVID-19 which was raging in that time.
There is still a long way to go before reaching pre-pandemic levels of 2.6 million passengers in January representing only 37.9% of the volume observed in January 2019 More broadly, according to the March barometer of the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), international tourism continued to recover in January 2022, with arrivals worldwide more than doubling (+130%) in January 2022, compared to January 2021.
“There were 12 destinations that had no COVID-19 restrictions in place as of March 24. A growing number of destinations are also easing and/or removing restrictions” the report read. UNWTO pointed out that “the high uncertainty stemming from Russia’s military offensive against Ukraine” as well as the travel restrictions in place due to the pandemic could however “disrupt the upward trend”.