The overall growth in Canadian airport traffic appears to be slowing, but international traffic continues to surge.
New StatsCan figures show that 4.3 million passengers passed through pre-board security screening at checkpoints operated at Canada's eight largest airports in January, an increase of 10.2% from January 2023.
However, January 2024 traffic was 2.6% below the volume in January 2020, pre-COVID-19 pandemic. This was the second straight month in which traffic was below pre-pandemic levels, after having surpassed them for five consecutive months from July to November 2023.
In January 2024, other international traffic (outside the United States) was up 17.0% year over year. The number of passengers screened for these international flights, at 1.4 million, was 4.7% higher than the level reported in January 2020, marking the fourth consecutive month in which international traffic exceeded pre-pandemic levels.
Transborder traffic to the United States was also strong on a year-over-year basis in January 2024, up 14.1%. However, the transborder passenger screening numbers remained below pre-pandemic levels.
Domestic screened traffic rebounded in January, posting a 2.8% gain over the same month in 2023. Domestic screenings in January 2024 were 6.1% below the January 2020 level, as passenger volumes failed to exceed pre-pandemic levels for a third straight month.
In January 2024, Canada's eight largest airports all experienced higher volumes of screened passenger traffic from the same month in 2023, with six of the eight airports up by more than 9.0% year over year. While increases at Edmonton International (+3.3%) and Halifax Stanfield International (+2.5%) were more modest, both airports bounced back from the year-over-year dip experienced in December 2023.
In January 2024, three of Canada's eight largest airports surpassed their pre-pandemic screened passenger volumes from January 2020: Calgary International (+4.0%), Montréal-Trudeau International (+2.8%) and Halifax Stanfield International (+2.1%). Notably, this marked the 10th consecutive month in which volumes at Montréal-Trudeau exceeded pre-pandemic levels.
