REGINA – With an ongoing trade war between Canada and the U.S., many travellers north of the border are deciding against taking a trip to America.
This has led to flight booking in Canada to take a sharp decline over the past year, according to OAG Aviation.
Their report found that “Passenger bookings on Canada – U.S. routes are currently down by 70 per cent compared to the same period last year.”
Even with these numbers, James Bogusz, Regina Airport Authority (RAA) CEO, said there haven’t been any decreases in bookings for American flights.
“We actually saw over 9,000 more transporter passengers [going from Regina to America] than we did last year at the same time period,” he said
These numbers take into account flights to Las Vegas, Phoenix, Orlando, and Minneapolis from Jan and Feb 2025.
One point Bogusz noted was that at this time last year, Regina had no direct flight to Minneapolis. This only came in April 2024, meaning a large spike of these passengers is likely attributed to this flight.
As for March numbers, Bogusz said the airport will have them in about two weeks.
One key announcement for the airport last year was introducing direct flights to Denver, Colorado, starting in May.
The flights will be provided by United Airlines, which operates heavily out of Denver International Airport. It’s expected to bring in nearly $10 million CAD annually for the Gross domestic product (GDP), said Bogusz.
From what they’ve told Bogusz, there has been a softening demand for connective flights to the U.S but nothing catastrophic.
However, he acknowledged, “we have concerns about softening demand. There’s no question about that.”
With these concerns, Bogusz said, “until I start seeing stats from April, May, June, it’s going to be very tough to see where this will go.”
Bogusz said the airport has been heavily marketing the return of the Regina-Denver flight to spread the word.
He will also be heading to Denver in May as part of a leadership roundtable with Economic Development Regina (EDR) as part of a mission to talk to local leaders about tariffs and enhancing relationships.
“I want to make sure that they can hear right from leaders like myself the importance of this connectivity,” he said.
Denver’s airport is the 10th busiest in the world, according to OAG Aviation. The airport goes to over 200 destinations in 19 countries.
Bogusz stressed the importance of having so many destinations at the expense of taking one flight.
“It puts us back on the map [to] have the ability for an event or conference.”
From the return of the Minneapolis flight, Bogusz said more than half the people use the flight for business purposes.
In his eyes, this could encourage companies to move their headquarters north of the border.
Speaking of flights, Bogusz mentioned the airport is trying to work with Porter Airlines to get a flight from Ottawa.
“We view this as a really good opportunity,” he said.
The airport had direct flights to Ottawa a few years ago courtesy of Air Canada, but that ended with no sign of returning.
Bogusz couldn’t give an exact timeframe for when this could happen, but he encouraged residents to tell Porter about wanting a flight to Ottawa.
“People should consider sending an email and tweeting them, whatever you got to do to push this.”
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