Calgary air travellers are still heading south amid political tensions

With Canada's weak dollar and tough Trump tariffs, it would appear there's not much of an appetite to visit the U.S. right now.

Recent Statistics Canada data from Calgary International Airport shows nearly the same number of travellers flying into Calgary from the U.S. as the same time last year.

The data shows that 84,898 Canadian residents returned to Calgary by air after overnight trips to the U.S. in March 2025, indicating a strong showing for cross border air travel. That’s a slight drop of 1,775 from the 86,673 that travelled back to Calgary during the same time frame last year.

However, land border crossings are declining, with Stats Can saying those are down compared to 2024.

Although January 2025 actually showed an uptick in crossings compared to 2024, in February, only 18,704 Canadians returned from the U.S. compared to 23, 204 in 2024.

In March, that number saw 27, 981 Canadians returning by vehicle from the U.S. compared to 32, 208 in 2024.

In the same month, 33,038 U.S. residents entered Calgary via air travel, an increase from 30,832 in the same timeframe last year.

Summer bookings to U.S. down: data analysis

Aviation Analytics firm Cirium analyzes data through forward looking at flight bookings into the summer.

Spokesman Mike Arnot says domestic bookings in Canada are up around 11 per cent, with some airlines changing capacity to add more domestic flights.

He says that nationally, air travel to the U.S. is significantly down.

“The bookings that were made in January of 2025 to March of 2025 for this coming summer, compared to the same period last summer, were down about 19 per cent,” said Arnot.

But there is a caveat.

“Calgary to the U.S. market is relatively stable with the bookings for similar periods for this coming summer are right on for what they were last summer,” said Arnot.

“That being said, the airlines are also adding capacity out of Calgary to the United States, so you see an increase in the number of seats that will be available between Calgary and, and the U.S.”

He said that some airlines are still making bets on the U.S market this summer.

“Broadly, in the Canadian market, bookings are down between Canada and the United States,” said Arnot.

“The airlines are going to increase flying from Calgary to the United States this summer. In fact, it’s up (available seats) around 7.5 to 7.9 per cent.”

Courting Canucks

Destinations in the U.S actively court Canadian tourists.

That includes Arizona. In 2023, 822,500 Canadian overnight visitors vacationed in The Grand Canyon State where they spent about USD $775 million.

“Arizona is here. We are welcoming to our Canadian visitors. We want them to come in and we want them to have the great time that they always have in Arizona,” said Josh Coddington, director of communications with the Arizona Office of Tourism.

Coddington also pointed to the appeal of Arizona’s smaller communities.

“Arizona is full of a lot of great small towns. There’s a lot of great rural towns out there,” he said.

“A lot of them have, mining history, mining culture, or they’ve evolved into being art havens or great places for hiking or birdwatching. And Canadians love doing that.”

Karl Komm booked a trip to Nashville for a concert, flying out on Wednesday.

“We booked it quite a while ago, ” he said.

“We have tickets to a concert at the Bridgestone Arena down there and, I think we booked back in late October, early November.”

With a weak Canadian dollar and political tensions, Komm said he probably wouldn’t book the trip again.

“Had we not booked the tickets we probably wouldn’t be taking this vacation right now,” Komm said.

Others say they plan to continue visiting our southern neighbours.

“We love going there,” said Kerri Kuefler, who was off to Lake Havasu City, Arizona.

“I hope that we can keep that going, but we’ll see what happens.”

And any political turmoil wasn’t stopping Carolyn Charles and her friends from a bachelorette party in Nashville.

“I have friends and family down in the states, so I haven’t had any issue traveling in between since Trump has gotten in or anything else has changed,” said Charles.