Air Canada will drop two flights to Charlottetown Airport as part of a major reduction in service to the airline.
Air Canada announced Wednesday that it would cut 77 round-trip flights from its schedule to stabilize its operations. Two of them, a scheduled departure at 6:35 a.m. for Montreal and 5:15 a.m. for Toronto, are outside Charlottetown Airport.
Starting July 6, Air Canada will operate two daily round trips to Toronto and Montreal. There is also only one flight left to Ottawa for a total of five round-trip flights from Air Canada from Charlottetown this summer.
There is still no accurate news of what this would mean for seating capacity at the airport, said Doug Newson, general manager of Charlottetown Airport. This will depend on the size of the aircraft operating on the remaining flights.
“It would be between 25 and 30 per cent of the projected seats we had with Air Canada during those months,” Newson said.
“It’s starting to feel like an airport again,” says Doug Newson, CEO of the Charlottetown Airport Authority. (Tony Davis / CBC)
“It’s certainly not the news we want to hear as the recovery returns, but I think it’s better than putting in a calendar that can’t work reliably.”
As the demand for flights has increased with the lifting of pandemic restrictions, airlines around the world have struggled to keep up after a closure in almost 2020. Flights have been delayed and travelers have faced waiting hours at airports.
Air Canada isn’t the only one making cuts. WestJet recently announced it will reduce 16 percent of flights on its network, Newson said.
Airlines, like many sectors of the tourism industry, are struggling to find enough staff to accommodate people who want to travel, he said.
“We all expected him to come back soon. I don’t know if anyone expected him to come back as fast as he did,” Newson said.
“It’s really disappointing when you think about the last two years and all the optimism in the industry this summer for the industry to try to recover and get some of that money back for the airlines. That’s probably the last thing that “But the operational integrity of their system is more important than setting a schedule that they just can’t handle.”
“A very difficult time”
Corryn Clemence is the CEO of the PEI Tourism Industry Association and, like Newson, is disappointed but understands Air Canada’s decision.
It doesn’t make sense for the airline to promise flights it can’t offer, he said.
“It’s a very difficult time,” Clemence said.
The reduction in capacity at Charlottetown Airport will have an impact on PEI’s tourism operations, says Corryn Clemence. (Julien Lecacheur / Radio-Canada)
“After two years, basically shutting down or operating at a very small capacity, it’s very difficult to just turn that switch on and go back to its full capacity.”
Labor shortages have also been a problem for PEI tour operators
A few hours after the announcement, it is impossible to say what impact the announcement will have on the PEI tourist season, Clemence said.
But it seems likely that some people who wanted to come to PEI will not be able to do so. This will lead to the cancellation of bookings for accommodation, the sale of lower tickets to festivals and events and fewer people eating at the island’s restaurants.