Outside of the COVID-19 pandemic I don’t recall travel between Canada and the U.S. ever seeing the likes of what is happening right now. Canadian airlines are rapidly adjusting schedules due to lower demand for travel to the U.S. from Canada and are redeploying their planes on domestic routes within Canada and adding more routes to Europe. Meanwhile some U.S. airlines are also now starting to reduce their Canadian capacity as well.
The schedule changes for lower U.S. travel demand is pretty evident from a look of my notification feed from Aeroroutes! It is chock full of schedule updates (read reductions) for travel between Canada and the U.S.
Here are some of the key routes being reduced, removed or not launching now:
- Flair Airlines has cancelled planned Toront0-Nashville service
- Many seasonal U.S. routes flown by Flair are ending in early April rather than late April and May
- WestJet is ending seasonal Kelowna to Las Vegas service nearly a month earlier than planned
- WestJet will not offer the once per week Calgary to New York La Guardia service they were planning to fly this summer
- WestJet will not go ahead with the once per week Edmonton to Orlando service
- Many other WestJet routes are seeing service reductions
- Porter is reducing Toronto to Los Angeles from 14 to 10 flights per week (Although they are increasing Toronto to San Francisco and Ottawa to Boston)
- Air Canada has cancelled Vancouver to Washington Dulles
- United has cancelled a planned Toronto to Los Angeles service and will reduce capacity out of Washington Dulles to Montreal and Ottawa
I’m sure the feed from Aeroroutes isn’t done with feeding us news of service reductions! If you have booked flights to the U.S. for the summer I would recommend staying abreast of any news (Following Aeroroutes is one way!) about possible schedule changes, reductions or cancellations. The airlines should be notifying you of such changes but it doesn’t hurt to be proactive and check on your own.
What about you? Have you changed your summer travel plans away from the U.S. for domestic travel or travel to other international destinations? Let us know in the comments below or in our Facebook group