Terry Bos, Sault Ste. Marie Airport Development Corporation (SSMADC) president and CEO, is pleased with numbers showing the airport saw a steady increase in aircraft movement numbers over the past COVID-ravaged year.
“The trend in passenger levels continued to be encouraging and the aircraft have returned to more normal capacity levels. Since Air Canada added the second daily flight in Mid-July passenger levels have increased accordingly," Bos stated in a SSMADC release issued Wednesday.
He said aircraft movement levels in May of this year have been the highest since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
There were 9,131 aircraft traffic movements at the Sault Airport in May 2021. That is part of a steady monthly improvement in those movement numbers since June 2020, during which there were a mere 954 movements.
The May 2021 aircraft traffic movement figure represents a 943.5 per cent increase over May 2020.
In terms of actual passenger traffic numbers at the Sault Airport, July saw an increase from June to the highest level in 16 months, but remains down over 77 per cent from pre-COVID 2019 levels.
There were 4,250 passengers using the Sault Airport in July, up from 2,253 in June.
That, however, is still down from 18,800 passengers in July 2019, as the airport still recovers from the effects of the pandemic.
SSMADC says Bearskin Airlines currently provides two daily flights Sunday and four daily flights Monday to Friday.
Air Canada Express provides two flights daily.
“This is still a major decrease in flight options compared to August of 2019 when Air Canada was flying six daily flights, Porter was flying three flights daily Sunday to Friday and one on Saturday, and Bearskin was flying five flights daily Monday and Friday, six daily flights Tuesday and Wednesday, seven on Thursday (none on Saturday) and two on Sunday,” SSMADC said.