Airlines are retreating from the U.S. Here’s where Canadians are flying to instead

An Air Transat Airbus A330 lands at Montreal's Trudeau airport, Sunday, July 31, 2016. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes

MONTREAL -- Canadian airlines pulled back in a big way from the United States over the past year and boosted flight volumes elsewhere -- especially the Caribbean -- with no sign of a cross-border rebound on the horizon.

Canada-U.S. flight volumes fell more than 14 per cent year-over-year in the fourth quarter among Canada’s five largest carriers -- Air Canada, WestJet, Porter Airlines, Air Transat and Flair Airlines -- according to figures from aviation data firm Cirium.

Florida, California and Nevada saw some of the biggest drops in capacity from Canadian carriers, with volumes to Las Vegas down by a third from a year earlier.

Meanwhile, as passengers looked farther afield, airlines ramped up flight volumes in the Caribbean and South America -- by 36 per cent last quarter and 45 per cent in the current one.

The number of domestic flights and trips to Europe and Asia also rose from 2024 as airlines scrambled to rejig their networks.

Former transport professor Jacques Roy says Canadians’ distaste for U.S. visits triggered by President Donald Trump’s tariff war and social policies nonetheless marks a problem for airlines north of the border, which will have to compete in more crowded fields overseas and domestically.

“There is a natural reaction from Canadian travellers, who try to get their suntan from other destinations,” he said.

Nor are there signs of a return to business as usual. Canadian airline schedules show a 15 per cent drop in flight volumes during the first three months of this year compared to 2025 -- when people had already started to shy away from travel to a country whose leader spouted 51st-state rhetoric in reference to its northern neighbour.

First-quarter volumes for Arizona-bound flights are scheduled to fall by more than 20 per cent year-over-year. For Florida, the figure is nearly 19 per cent.

“The airlines were hoping that this was just going to be a flash in the pan ... that it would eventually settle back into a return to sun destinations by the time the fourth quarter rolled along,” said John Gradek, who teaches aviation management at McGill University.

That didn’t happen. “And the first quarter doesn’t look much brighter.”

The first-quarter decrease amounts to nearly 850,000 seats, according to Cirium.

On the plus side, Canadians’ appetite for winter air travel has persisted, despite trips that are farther from home and sometimes harder on the wallet.

Air Canada launched more than a dozen fresh routes and several new destinations in the Caribbean and South America -- Rio de Janeiro, Guatemala City, and Cartagena, Colombia, among them -- over the last few months.

Some beachy getaway spots saw massive surges. As demand shifted, WestJet increased flights to Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic last quarter to 1,018 from 320 a year earlier.

Canadian flight volumes to Cancun, Mexico, jumped by 35 per cent, and to Central America by nearly a third.

“Canadians are moving and they’re trying different destinations,” Gradek said.

Mark Galardo, Air Canada’s chief commercial officer, stressed that the downturn in tourist travel to the U.S. is “not catastrophic,” with the decline in its U.S. flight volumes holding steady at about 10 per cent through most of last year and into 2026.

“We see a plateau. The situation has not worsened,” he said in a phone interview.

Meanwhile, Americans continue to flock to Canada by air. The tally rose more than six per cent year-over-year to 448,000 in October, according to Statistics Canada. And residents of both countries still touch down on each other’s turf for layovers on flights to Europe and Asia, propping up demand.

Canadians’ thirst for trips to Europe is only partly linked to tourists’ aversion to America, Galardo added.

“We’re seeing a lot of demand growth into European leisure destinations,” he said. Hence new routes to Greece, Italy, France, Spain and Portugal.

In the U.S., the airline has swapped in smaller planes and lowered flight frequencies to airports in southern states, and even dropped a few routes, he noted.

By Christopher Reynolds

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 8, 2026.

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