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
YUL
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
The prestigious Skytrax awards for World’s Best Airport are out, and it’s a mixed bag for Canada. Vancouver International rose from 28th spot in 2022 to 20th in this year’s rankings, while Montreal Trudeau leapt from 66th to 45th; a gain of 21 points. Toronto Pearson, the airport Canadians love to hate, plummeted from 43rd in the world last year to 64th this time around. That’s a fall of 21 positions, the same number that Montreal had in the improvement column. Toronto Billy Bishop, aka Toronto City Airport and the Toronto Island Airport, was named eighth in the world for Read more
Porter Airlines has revealed its first destinations for its new Embraer long-range jets. The Toronto-based airline says it will begin operations at Toronto Pearson on Feb. 1, 2023, with flights to Ottawa and Montreal Trudeau airports. Six days later, Feb. 7, will see their first flight to the west coast, a Toronto-Vancouver trip. That gives Ontario residents a new way to fly to B.C., and British Columbia flyers a new way to head east. Flights between Toronto-Montreal and Toronto-Ottawa start at an introductory fare of $225 round-trip. Introductory fares for Vancouver-Toronto start at just $248 round-trip. Porter is starting with Read more
Mandatory random testing of fully vaccinated travellers arriving at some Canadian airports will resume today. Ottawa paused mandatory random testing for those entering Canada by air on June 11, 2022, as part of a broader strategy to transition testing for air travellers outside of the airports. But mandatory random tests resume Tuesday, July 19, 2022 for travellers who qualify as fully vaccinated. The rules apply to those arriving in Canada by air to the four major Canadian airports—Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal and Toronto. Health officials say air travellers who qualify as fully vaccinated and who are selected for mandatory random testing, Read more
