Passenger numbers gaining altitude after pandemic: WAA

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This article was published 18/01/2024 (630 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

After struggling to restore air service that ground to a halt during the pandemic, the Winnipeg Airports Authority is close to seeing passenger numbers rebound and preparing for them to take off.

That’s thanks, in part, to provincial pandemic-recovery funds and the airport’s hiring of an expert to ramp up the city’s flight connections to the rest of the world.

“At the time the pandemic struck, we didn’t know how long it was going to last, if it was going to be a matter of weeks. We certainly didn’t expect it to be years,” said Paul Forde, the authority’s first director of air service development, who was hired shortly before COVID-19 shut down flights worldwide in 2020.

The former Canadian airline network planner, who previously worked for British Airways, started his new job in Winnipeg in December 2019.

“I’ve seen the demise of passenger travel from 4.5 million passengers down to virtually zero,” said Forde. “That’s been a key part of my role, to try to get that back up.”

In 2021, 1.2 million passengers travelled through Winnipeg’s Richardson International Airport. In 2022, the number was just over three million.

Forde said he expects the final tally for 2023 will show close to 4.1 million passengers.

When COVID-19 hit and flights stopped, he stayed in touch with airlines to ensure that Winnipeg’s airport was in a position to recover as quickly as possible.

“It was an ongoing process and a tough time,” he said. “Canada was really one of the worst-affected, globally, from the restrictions that were imposed, especially compared to the U.S.

“We were desperate to get U.S. carriers back into Winnipeg and into Canada, in general. That was one of the biggest challenges — the U.S. was open and Canada wasn’t. We’re still in the process of recovering that.”

In the summer of 2022, the provincial government announced $4.8 million in funding for the Winnipeg Airports Authority to improve direct flight connectivity from Winnipeg to major international markets, including Los Angeles. In 2023, the province announced another $5 million for the air service development fund, with WestJet offering direct flights to Atlanta starting in September.

The WAA is trying to restore direct flights to Chicago and Denver that United Airlines cancelled in April 2020, Forde said.

“Hopefully, we can see United Airlines back in the near future, which will then put us back into a stronger position than we were pre-pandemic.”

Winnipeg has to compete with similar markets for air carriers, said Tyler MacAfee, the WAA’s vice-president of external affairs.

Funding from the $50-million provincial Pandemic Long-Term Recovery Fund administered by the Manitoba Chambers of Commerce is being used by the authority to help attract carriers, add direct flights and re-establish routes, MacAfee said.

The WAA declined to disclose details about various arrangements with carriers, including Toronto-based Porter Airlines, which added Winnipeg to its network in September and Calgary’s low-cost Lynx Air, which added the city in 2022, he said.

While the WAA consults with the likes of Tourism Manitoba and Economic Development Winnipeg, efforts to establish direct flights to Los Angeles weren’t based on years of demands from people in Manitoba’s film industry but on passenger demand, Forde said.

L.A. was at the top of Winnipeggers’ destinations list, he said, noting that the number of passengers travelling to the West Coast city has grown 68 per cent in the first year of service.

Three direct flights a week are proving to be sustainable for WestJet, and Manitoba’s film industry is playing a major role in generating traffic, Forde said.

WestJet’s direct flights to Atlanta, the world’s most connected airport, open doors to tourism and business, he said. It’s too soon to measure that route’s growth, but the first-quarter of the year indicates it’s also succeeding, he said.

Restoring air service and direct flights to Atlanta and L.A. wouldn’t have got off the ground without government funding, MacAfee said.

“We’re using that however we can maximize it to get the biggest gain,” he said. “Our intention is to use any incentives to spur the routes to start.”

Forde said he’s working at restoring a direct long-haul destination flight to a European city such as London or Frankfurt.

“We’re working with airlines and having discussions,” he said. “We’d all love to go to Manila tomorrow, but it’s so difficult to implement a direct flight. It is very data-driven. It’s all about passenger demand and knowing which destinations are not only attractive to the airport but they’ve got to be attractive to the airline: does it fit their network?”

Manitoba’s Filipino population grew to 94,320 in 2023, but travellers will continue having to fly to the Philippines through Los Angeles or Vancouver, Forde said.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca