Lots of Canadian airline news to share this morning, including more great ways to get to Europe, a new dining option at Montreal Trudeau Airport, and possibly new ways to explore the Caribbean and Mexico. With the Canada-USA tariff war still carrying on, Canadians seem to be increasingly avoiding trips to the United States. Air Canada has started trimming routes to some U.S. destinations, including Florida, New Orleans and Kansas City, and now it seems WestJet is following suit. SimpleFlying says WestJet will go from eight to 11 flights per week for its Toronto-Dublin and Toronto-Edinburgh flights, but didn’t list Read more
Montreal Trudeau Airport
Porter Airlines is responding to strong demand for its service by more than doubling capacity to Florida this winter. The new schedule features up to 126 weekly departures across 14 routes from four Eastern Canada airports in Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Halifax. The line-up of destinations includes Fort Lauderdale, Fort Myers, Miami, Orlando, Tampa, and the new addition of West Palm Beach. Seasonal service between Toronto Pearson International Airport and Palm Beach International Airport begins November 14, with one daily roundtrip flight. New service from Montreal-Trudeau International Airport to Fort Lauderdale and Fort Myers starts this winter. Porter is the Read more
Muscat, Oman has the world’s best airport, Minneapolis is best in the U.S., and Calgary is tops in Canada, a new study from AirHelp says. The company ranked 200 world airports for on-time performance, customer opinion (based on surveys) and food + drink, then issued a final score. AirHelp puts on-time performance as the main component, worth a full 60% of an airport’s final score. A score of 8.5 indicates 85% of flights arrived on time. They count a plane as on time if it arrives within 15 minutes of its scheduled arrival. Customer opinion (they were asked about wait Read more
The Trudeau government says the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority (CATSA) will soon launch a new Verified Traveller program that will offer a faster and more efficient screening experience for eligible travellers at select airports across Canada. The news was quickly welcomed by a lobby group of Canadian business people, which called it a “forward-thinking” plan that will “improve the security screening experience for eligible travellers.” Ottawa said the new Verified Traveller program will replace the current Trusted Traveller program. By June 21, 2023, dedicated Verified Traveller screening lines will be available at select domestic and international checkpoints in the Read more
We all remember the headlines from last summer: “Canadian airport chaos,” “A sea of lost bags,” and “Toronto Pearson ranked worst airport in world.” I did a series of CBC radio interviews last Friday to talk about whether we’ll see a repeat of the 2022 Summer of Travel Chaos. Here’s what I had to say. What do thing look like for the summer of 2023? There appears to be tons of demand. Air Canada last Friday reported operating revenues for the first quarter of this year were nearly double 2022 numbers. A Mastercard report issued last Thursday found that leisure Read more
