Screened passenger traffic at Canadian airports, April 2024
Released: 2024-05-29
4.3 million
April 2024
4.0% 
(12-month change)
Highlights
In April, 4.3 million passengers passed through pre-board security screening at checkpoints operated at Canada's eight largest airports, an increase of 4.0% from April 2023.
Screened passenger traffic volumes came in slightly below pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels, with 1.6% fewer screened passengers in April 2024 than in April 2019.
Growth of international passenger traffic slows
Transborder (to the United States) and other international flights both experienced year-over-year increases in screened passengers in April 2024, albeit at a slower pace than in previous months.
Transborder screened passengers were up 7.8% over April 2023, whereas double-digit year-over-year gains were recorded in each of the three months preceding April 2024. In addition, passenger screenings for flights to the United States continued to lag pre-pandemic levels, down 7.1% from the April 2019 level.
In April 2024, international screened passengers (outside of the United States) increased 11.4% over April 2023, compared with growth of more than 17.0% in each of the first three months of the year. However, international traffic exceeded the pre-pandemic level from April 2019 by 11.2%.
Domestic passenger screening counts were down 2.8% in April 2024 over the same month the previous year. Moreover, domestic traffic was 5.5% below the pre-pandemic volume recorded in April 2019.
Chart 1
Number of screened passengers at the eight largest airports in Canada, monthly, 2019 to 2024
Sustained passenger traffic at airports
In April, seven of Canada's eight largest airports posted higher volumes of passenger traffic year over year. Only Calgary International (-0.3%) posted a small decline in passenger traffic compared with April of last year.
Conversely, in April, three airports reported higher screened passenger volumes than their pre-pandemic levels from April 2019: Montréal/Pierre Elliott Trudeau International (+6.0%), Calgary International (+0.3%) and Vancouver International (+0.2%).
Chart 2
Number of screened passengers at the eight largest airports in Canada, by sector, April, 2019 to 2024
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Note to readers
Data for this release are derived from the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority (CATSA) Boarding Pass Security System and include screened traffic at pre-board security screening checkpoints at the eight largest airports in Canada.
The eight largest airports in Canada are Halifax/Robert L. Stanfield International, Montréal/Pierre Elliott Trudeau International, Ottawa/Macdonald-Cartier International, Toronto/Lester B. Pearson International, Winnipeg/James Armstrong Richardson International, Calgary International, Edmonton International and Vancouver International.
Screened passenger traffic includes air travellers required to go through pre-board security screening and excludes aircrew and airport employees. This data series is a different measure of traffic than the counts of enplaned or deplaned passengers published in Statistics Canada's annual Airport activity report or produced by the individual airports. For example, the screened passenger data will not account for passengers with connecting flights who did not pass through security. For more information, please refer to the "Related information" tab (Definitions, data sources and methods) for this release.
Users interested in accessing daily counts of screened traffic at Canada's major airports can obtain them from the CATSA website.
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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