Air Canada says demand for flights between Canadian and U.S. cities is weak for the spring and summer months, as Canadians respond to the trade war by avoiding trips south.
Bookings for transborder flights were down 10 per cent for the April-to-September period compared with the same period last year, as of mid-March, according to a presentation at the company’s annual meeting.
Air Canada is the largest Canadian airline and flies to more U.S. destinations than any other. “Am I concerned?,” Chairman Vagn Sørensen said in a response to a question from a shareholder during Monday’s meeting. “Yes, definitely, I’m concerned.”
Shares of Air Canada are down 35 per cent since the beginning of the year.
Air Canada and WestJet said in separate statements last week that geopolitical tensions are causing some consumers to choose not to take vacations in the U.S. The shift is part of a larger boycott of American products in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs and his repeated statements that he believes Canada should be part of the U.S.
Sørensen added that the company is seeing strong demand for transatlantic flights to European destinations. The airline announced Monday that it’s adding flights this summer to cities including Edinburgh, Paris, Athens and Rome.
U.S.-Canada routes were 22 per cent of Air Canada’s passenger revenue in 2024.
Air Canada focuses on staying “agile,” Sørensen said, maintaining enough flexibility to redeploy capacity when demand shifts.
Porter Airlines, a competitor to Air Canada, said Monday it has altered its summer schedule so that domestic routes are 80 per cent of its total capacity, up from 75 per cent in its original plan. The airline said it’s making “targeted frequency reductions in select U.S. markets” but that its overall presence on Canada-U.S. routes will still be larger than last summer. Porter has been expanding capacity as it deploys new Embraer E195-E2 jets.
UK-based Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd. also warned Monday that ticket sales on flights originating in the U.S. have weakened in recent weeks, while demand from Europe to the U.S. has held up well so far.
The S&P 500 Passenger Airlines Index dropped more than 6 per cent early Monday before paring those losses to a 1.4 per cent decline as of 1:30 p.m. New York time.
Public opinion polls show that a large majority of Canadians have no interest in joining the U.S. and they disapprove of Trump. A poll by Leger Marketing released last week found only nine per cent of Canadians would like to be part of the U.S.
Mathieu Dion, Bloomberg News
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