Porter Airlines is the latest Canadian airline to fine-tune its schedules based on weaker travel demand in the US, but has committed to maintaining substantial operations to the US during the summer air travel season.
The revised summer schedule, released on March 31, shows Porter's previous 75% plan, with domestic flights increasing to 80% of total network capacity.
“This is balanced with target frequency reductions in some US markets,” Porter says. “In spite of the changes, Porter's presence in the Canadian US market is 25% greater than last summer.”
Most changes include enhancing frequencies for existing routes, including transcontinental flights between eastern Canada and Vancouver and Victoria.
Toronto-based Porter has been pursuing active expansion plans across North America in recent years, with 44 powerful Embraer E195-E2S currently in place. Fly to several US cities, including Chicago, Boston, New York, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.
Porter expects to receive six more E195-E2s, and holds 50 more options. It also operates a regional network with a fleet of nearly 30 Havilland Canada DHC Dash 8-400, including some cities in the Northeastern United States.
Canadian airlines see soft demand amid geopolitical tensions between Canada and the US, primarily linked to the potential wars of trade wars.
“Our goal is to fly where our customers want to travel, which is the moment when Canada is at the top of a lot of people's list,” says Kevin Jackson, president of Porter. “We are increasing routes and flights across the country to meet this demand.”
Last week, Calgary-based low-cost carrier Flair Airlines revealed that slowing demand during the winter travel season could impact snowbird travel.
Flair said “our demand for sunscreen cools down,” so that winter schedule puts priority on domestic destinations.
With the Boeing 737 fleet, Flair plans to raise Vancouver-Calgary flights to 21 each week, up 40% in the previous winter. It also focuses on Edmonton Abbotford and Vancouver and Toronto, increasing the frequency of flights to Mexico and Jamaica.
Meanwhile, Air Canada recently notified investors that air travel bookings to US cities have fallen by around 10% in the spring and summer months. Rival WestJet is marketing new cross-season flights from New Brunswick to Barcelona and Amsterdam.
Montreal-based leisure carrier Air Transat focuses on transatlantic flights to European holiday destinations rather than flights to the US.
Flying to two destinations in Florida (Orlando and Fort Lauderdale) and there are no other US cities. These routes represent approximately 3% of passenger capacity measured in the available seat kilometres.
But in calling for the carrier's most generous revenue, Chief Annick Gerard said Transat was monitoring the impact of the US-lit trade war, weakening concerns about Canadian currency and widespread economic downturns.
