Canadian airlines adding flights, capacity in bid to recover COVID-19 losses

Airlines are adding flights and capacity in the hope that passengers are eager to jump back onto flights after more than 18 long months of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Airlines are adding flights and capacity in the hope that passengers are eager to jump back onto flights after more than 18 long months of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We’ve been going through the equivalent of about 11 years of historical growth over the past six months, so the growth has been really tremendous over a very, very short period of time,” says John Weatherill, chief commercial officer at WestJet.

After a near-grounding of flights, the Calgary-based airline expects to be at about 70 per cent its pre-COVID capacity by the end of December, fully restore its domestic business by next summer and see its international capacity fully return by the end of 2022.

Air Canada, with its larger network and increased service to international destinations and business travellers, is projecting that it will be back to where it was before the pandemic struck by 2023 or 2024.

“But those dates are very movable depending on how things develop over the next six months,” said Mark Galardo, senior vice-president of network planning and revenue management at Air Canada.

Future waves of COVID could upset these plans, although airlines expect a growing number of vaccinations will help to address any new health challenges.

“We’re feeling generally good that the worst is behind us,” he said in an interview.

Galardo said COVID has been an eye-opening experience that wiped out a decade of growth.