Monthly civil aviation statistics, August 2023
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Released: 2023-10-26
Highlights
Major Canadian airlines carried 7.7 million passengers on scheduled and charter services in August, up 12.7% from the same month in 2022.
With traffic at 22.0 billion passenger-kilometres and capacity at 24.5 billion available seat-kilometres, the passenger load factor was 89.8% in August 2023.
Operating revenue earned in August exceeded the level from August 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic; this was the ninth consecutive month operating revenue exceeded pre-pandemic levels.
Wildfires continue
In August 2023, wildfires continued to rage in different parts of Canada. Evacuation orders prompted airlines to add flights or increase aircraft size on flights ahead of evacuation deadlines and cancel flights after these deadlines.
Recovery pauses
Canadian Level I air carriers flew 7.7 million passengers on scheduled and charter services in August 2023. This was 6.7% below the pre-pandemic level reported in August 2019, which is a larger gap than the average gap of roughly 5% reported in May, June and July compared with the corresponding months of 2019.
Chart 1
Passengers carried by Canadian Level I air carriers, August, 2019 to 2023
Prior to the pandemic, August was typically the busiest month of the year for Canadian airlines. While August was the busiest month so far in 2023, the increase in passenger counts from July was smaller than typically observed pre-pandemic.
With traffic at 22.0 billion passenger-kilometres and capacity at 24.5 billion available seat-kilometres, the passenger load factor (the ratio of passenger-kilometres to available seat-kilometres) was 89.8% in August, roughly unchanged from July (89.7%) and one percentage point higher than in August 2019 (88.8%).
Each passenger travelled an average of 2,851 kilometres in August 2023, similar to the pre-pandemic level in August 2019 (2,837 kilometres).
At 186,000, the number of flying hours in August 2023 was 11.4% below the pre-pandemic level in August 2019.
Operating revenue earned by Level I air carriers totalled $2.9 billion in August 2023, 7.5% higher than in August 2019.
Chart 2
Passengers carried, Canadian air carriers, Level I
Chart 3
Passenger load factor, Canadian air carriers, Level I
Chart 4
Turbo fuel consumed, Canadian air carriers, Level I
Note to readers
The Monthly Civil Aviation Survey covers all Canadian Level I air carriers: Air Canada (including Air Canada Rouge), Air Transat, Jazz, Porter, Sunwing and WestJet (including Swoop, WestJet Encore and WestJet Link).
The average passenger trip length is calculated by dividing the number of passenger-kilometres by the number of passengers. Trips across Canada and around the world are included in this calculation.
The data in this monthly release are not seasonally adjusted.
On November 27, Statistics Canada will begin a new monthly data release of screened passenger traffic at Canada's eight largest airports. Data are derived from the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority Boarding Pass Security System and include screened traffic at pre-board screening checkpoints at the airports.
Contact information
For more information, or to enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact us (toll-free 1-800-263-1136; 514-283-8300; infostats@statcan.gc.ca) or Media Relations (statcan.mediahotline-ligneinfomedias.statcan@statcan.gc.ca).
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