Monthly civil aviation statistics, September 2023

Released: 2023-11-28

Highlights

Major Canadian airlines carried 6.7 million passengers on scheduled and charter services in September, up 12.1% from the same month in 2022.

With traffic at 19.2 billion passenger-kilometres and capacity at 22.0 billion available seat-kilometres, the passenger load factor was 87.2% in September 2023.

Operating revenue earned in September exceeded the level from the same month of 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic, for the 10th consecutive month.

Summer travel season winds down

September 2023 brought an end to the summer travel season. Following a smaller seasonal increase in passenger numbers in August than what was observed before the pandemic, the decline in September was smaller than what was typically observed pre-pandemic.

Recovery resumes

Canadian Level I air carriers flew 6.7 million passengers on scheduled and charter services in September. This represents 97.0% of the pre-pandemic level reported in September 2019—the highest monthly recovery rate to date.

Chart 1 
Passengers carried by Canadian Level I air carriers, September, 2019 to 2023

The major airlines continue to fly with fewer empty seats in 2023 than prior to the pandemic. With traffic at 19.2 billion passenger-kilometres and capacity at 22.0 billion available seat-kilometres, the passenger load factor (the ratio of passenger-kilometres to available seat-kilometres) was 87.2% in September. This was above the 83.6% load factor recorded in September 2019, continuing the trend of load factors exceeding pre-pandemic levels that began in January 2023.

Each passenger travelled an average of 2,857 kilometres in September 2023, up 1.3% from the same month four years earlier.

At 171,000, the number of flying hours in September 2023 was 8.1% below the pre-pandemic level in September 2019.

Operating revenue earned by Level I air carriers totalled $2.5 billion in September 2023, 17.4% higher than in the same month of 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

Contact information

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