Canadian airport delays, cancellations continue to decline, says Transport Canada

Canadian airports continue to improve service levels as the summer travel season begins to wind down, with cancellations and delays declining at the country's busiest airports. Transport Canada says that between Aug. 15 and Aug. 21, 168,812 passengers departed all Canadian airports, representing 83% of pre-pandemic capacity levels. At Canada's busiest airports – Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal and Calgary – 86% of all flights left on time or within an hour of their scheduled departure in that week, an improvement from 75% in the first week of July. During the same week in 2019, before the pandemic struck, 92% of flights were on time or left within the hour, although capacity levels were higher. Two per cent of scheduled flights at the country's busiest airports were cancelled in the third week of August, an improvement from 5% of all flights in July. While that cancellation level is the same as in 2019, capacity levels in 2022 are still below pre-pandemic activity at Canadian airports. Both Air Canada and WestJet cut flights from their schedules in July and August and flew fewer passengers than in 2019. While flight cancellations and delays improved from earlier this summer, the number of flights where passengers were held on board because of a lack of capacity in the airports crept up slightly. For the third week of August, two per cent – or 47 international flights – were held, all of those at Toronto's Pearson International Airport. Although that is down significantly from the peak when 373 flights were held in the first week of May, it is above the four-week rolling average at Pearson Airport of 37 flights held per week.<br/>