Nearly all Canadians fly on discounted fares as average airline prices drop

Air Canada passengers queue at Trudeau Airport in Montreal, on Friday, Apr. 13, 2012. (Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press)

Canadians love to complain about the high cost of air travel, but new numbers from Statistics Canada show air fares have actually fallen to their lowest rates since 2009.

The StatsCan data shows Canadian air fare costs declined in 2014, ending an upward price trend from the previous year. Canadian passengers paid an average of $243.70 for combined international and domestic air fare in 2014, which is only 20 cents more than the average ticket price in 2010.

And nearly all air travellers -- 97.2 per cent -- also obtained some sort of discount on their ticket.

StatsCan says aggressive competition from low-cost carriers has prevented larger airlines from hiking fares. The data also shows passengers are taking advantage of cheap flight offers, with at least 96.2 per cent of passengers flying at discounted rates in all four quarters of the year. The third quarter was the most-discounted time to fly, with 98.1 per cent of all domestic and international passengers flying at a discounted rate. Conversely, the first quarter of the year had the lowest rate of discounted tickets, at 96.2 per cent for international and domestic passengers.

Domestic flights

The air fare decline of 2014 was the result of year-over-year decreases in all quarters, with the largest declines in the first half of the year. The cost of an average domestic flight dropped to $184.90, down 3.1 per cent over the previous year.

Average domestic air fares were down in all 10 of the major cities in the study. Saskatoon saw the sharpest decline in the cost of its domestic flights, with a 7.4 per cent decrease. Edmonton had the softest drop, as prices there fell by only 1 per cent.

Toronto had the highest average domestic air fare at $208.80, due in part to the high number of long-haul flights flying out of Pearson Airport each day. Toronto’s average airline ticket price has been the highest in the country since 2002, despite a decrease of 2.6 per cent in its average domestic air fare for 2014.

Vancouver and Winnipeg also had domestic rates above the Canadian average.

Saskatoon was the cheapest place on the survey to buy an airline ticket, with an average domestic flight cost of $167.10.

The following list shows average domestic air fares in the 10 Canadian cities included in the study:

International flights

International flights are now markedly cheaper than they were in the years after the recession, according to the numbers from StatsCan. The average cost of an international flight decreased to $315.50 in 2014, a drop of 2.2 per cent from the previous year. That’s also much cheaper than the average of $331.80 recorded in 2010.

The StatsCan numbers show discounted international fares inched up by 0.2 per cent in 2014, to 97.2 per cent.

The StatsCan data comes from WestJet, Air Transat and the Air Canada family of airlines, including Jazz, Air Canada Rouge and regional code-share partners. All estimates have a co-efficient of variation of less than 10 per cent, and can be considered reliable from a sampling point of view.

Reported fares are base air fares, and do not include additional taxes, fees or fuel surcharges.