After months of political tensions and economic strain, Canadian airlines are facing a sharp decline in travel from Canada to the US and are rapidly reorganising their flight schedules and rethinking their destinations to contain the damage with creative solutions.
US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reports an all-time low in travel from Canada to the US, excluding the COVID pandemic. In March, nearly 900,000 fewer passengers flew south compared to the same time last year. March is traditionally one of the busiest months for US-bound travel. This decline is directly linked to Trump’s threats, a weaker Canadian dollar, trade tensions and restrictive immigration policies.
Forward travel bookings from Canada to the US are down 70%. This will not only hurt airlines and hotels, but hit small businesses that service the tourism industry.
— Stacy Minero (@sminero) April 18, 2025
Canada has been the top source of US International visitors, injecting $20.5B into the US economy last year. pic.twitter.com/sKjZJBnoXz
Several airlines have responded to this slump by reducing the number of flights to the US. WestJet, for example, has scaled back its capacity and rerouted aircraft to ‘markets of strength’ such as Europe and sunny destinations. WestJet spokesperson Josh Yeats cited ‘the current political environment and differences in currency exchange rates’, as major factors behind the shift.
Faced with a 10% drop in bookings, Air Canada has not only redeployed smaller aircraft on US routes but also boosted its transatlantic capacity with new services to Edinburgh, Paris, Rome and Athens.
This is your sign to take the trip out of the group chat! Book our new, seasonal non-stop flights to Naples, Porto or Prague and make it a summer to remember! 🍕🍷 🏰
— Air Canada (@AirCanada) April 16, 2025
Book now: https://t.co/TtIQhNZKDr pic.twitter.com/z3DeTDvNZv
And even Porter Airlines, which had significantly expanded its service to the US over the last year, has reduced its summer operations into the US and shifted some capacity to the domestic market.
‘It’s a tough place for the airlines to be,’ said Mike Arnot, a spokesperson for airline analytics firm Cirium. According to Cirium’s data, bookings between major Canadian cities to popular US destinations are down by 20% for the summer of 2025.
The US is one of the world’s top travel spots, pulling in over 72 million visitors last year and generating $1,3 trillion. But lately, travel from Europe and Canada is down by up to 35%, thanks to Trump’s talk and scary border stories.
— Pekka Kallioniemi (@P_Kallioniemi) April 12, 2025
Trump is bankrupting the US. pic.twitter.com/f8QMkxW6W3
At Calgary International Airport, anecdotal evidence collected by CBC News suggests that many Canadian travellers are steering clear of the US this summer, with some families choosing to meet in third countries rather than crossing the border.
Europe could very well be a major beneficiary of this shift. WestJet has added flights from Halifax to Barcelona and Amsterdam, while Discover Airlines, a subsidiary of Lufthansa has launched a new Munich-Calgary service, anticipating that tourists who might have otherwise headed to the US will now opt for Canada.
‘[The Munich airport] has very short connecting times, very short flights to other destinations in Europe,’ said CEO Bernd Bauer at a press conference in Calgary. ‘It’s great to travel there.’
Carney: Canada must be looking elsewhere to expand our trade, to build our economy, and to protect our sovereignty. Canada is ready to take a leadership role in building a coalition of likeminded countries who share our values… If the US no longer wants to lead, Canada will pic.twitter.com/dxwEdl1XEr
— unusual_whales (@unusual_whales) April 12, 2025
However, not all airlines are so easily and readily adaptable. Smaller North American airlines without transatlantic capacity could struggle to redeploy aircraft. Aviation expert John Gradek foresees a price war starting in May as a result of this limitation, potentially leading to an oversupply of seats in the Canadian domestic market. Ironically, as the Canadian dollar remains weak and recession fears loom, trips to the Big Apple might become quite inexpensive, as Arnot noted.
The impact extends beyond the airlines, though. ‘This is clearly a protest movement on the part of many Canadians and it’s having a huge negative impact in the US because all of those tourism dollars would have been spent in different tourist spots here,’ said Dr Amit Batabyal, an economics professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology. ‘Those dollars are going to other locations and nations.’
With the uncertainty surrounding the current 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs, fears remain high that should tensions resume, the economic fallout could be even worse and damage cross-border trade and travel, Batabyal added.
