The third quarter of 2023 saw a slower recovery from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the Kamloops airport director.
Ed Ratuski, managing director of the airport, says this is largely due to industry challenges associated with flight crew availability to serve the region.
It is also due to a reduction in service to Calgary, Ratuski adds.
In addition, Flair Airlines cancelled their service to Edmonton as of Sept. 6. At the time, Ratuski told KamloopsNow that there just weren’t enough people using the route.
Between July and September, the airport saw 74,092 passengers.
And although the third quarter saw a slower recovery, the number of people travelling was still significantly higher than in 2022.
For example, August was the busiest month with 26, 388 people travelling through Kamloops airport, which was a 13.8% increase from August 2022 when 23,185 people travelled through the airport.
More than 227,470 passengers have visited the airport since the beginning of the year, an overall increase of 25.9% when compared to the previous year.
However, the number of passengers who went through the airport this year decreased by 15.7% when compared to 2019 where 269,726 people were recorded flying in and out of the airport.
Ratuski expects the upcoming holiday and winter travel season to help increase performance.
“With the introduction of Pacific Coastal Airlines daily service Victoria (on) October 17th, WestJet Link’s twice daily service to Vancouver (starting) November 1st, and Air Canada’s reintroduction of the popular early morning departure to Vancouver, we expect Q4 performance to bring us closer to originally forecast passenger levels,” Ratuski writes in a release.
“Passengers are encouraged to explore the many convenient connection to popular sun destinations available from Kamloops.”
