Airport passenger numbers struggle to gain altitude in July

The president and CEO of the Sault Ste. Marie Airport says the number of passengers travelling through the airport was a disappointment last month, but adds that the Sault — like other regional airports — does not have the number of flights to help passenger levels climb to pre-pandemic levels.

A bright spot was that there were no cancellations for the month, continuing a positive trend for the year.

The airport reports that in July, passenger levels were down 7.6% compared to July of last year, with a total of 12,834 passengers compared to 13,891 in 2023. 

Meanwhile, passenger levels remain down 32% from pre-pandemic July 2019 levels, the airport says.

“Certainly the numbers for a number of reasons have been very disappointing,"  Terry Bos, airport president and CEO said in a release. 

"However, it should be noted that for the fifth month this year Air Canada had zero cancellations. In fact year to date between Air Canda and Porter there has been 17 flights in total cancelled between January and July. 

"The downside is like every other regional airport there is just insufficient capacity available in the industry to provide the needed number of flights to the market in order to return passenger levels to pre-pandemic levels.”

Here are July numbers year over year:

• 2019 - 18,800
• 2020 - 2,112
• 2021 - 4,250
• 2022 - 13,976
• 2023 - 13,891
• 2024 - 12,834

The numbers for July are similar to June's with 12,481 in June 2022, climbing to 13,500 in June 2023, but then dropping again to 12,268 in June this year.

The airport said the current number of flights provided are as follows:

• Air Canada Express two flights daily. 
• Bearskin Airlines 3 flights Sunday, 4 flights daily Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday; 6 flights on Wednesday.
• Porter 2 flights daily Sunday to Friday and one on Saturday.