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1. For the 12-month period from January to December 2013, for scheduled and charter services, the major Canadian air carriers reported a 1.2% increase in passengers and a 1.8% growth in passenger-kilometres compared with the same period in 2012. WestJet reported that total passenger-kilometres flown rose 7.3% during the period, while the operations of Air Canada decreased 0.1%. The slight decrease for Air Canada was largely due to its new leisure airline, Air Canada rouge, which began operations on July 1, 2013. Since then, Air Canada has deployed its leisure carrier to a large number of destinations in the Caribbean, Mexico, Europe and selected sun destinations in the United States. The data for Air Canada rouge are not included with Air Canada data in this publication.
2. In 2013, both Air Canada and WestJet reported their highest volume of scheduled passenger traffic in August. It was also during that month that these two carriers posted the highest number of passenger-kilometres flown for their scheduled operations. During the 12-month period, the average passenger trip length ranged from 3,162 kilometres in February to 3,664 kilometres in September for Air Canada, and from 1,585 kilometres in October to 1,827 kilometres in March for WestJet.
3. In 2013, WestJet increased its system capacity, as measured by available seat-kilometres, by 8.6% for its scheduled services compared with 2012. During the same period, the system capacity of Air Canada remained unchanged. Air Canada’s capacity increased in six of the 12 months—the variations ranged from -4.3% in February to 2.7% in May. WestJet’s capacity rose in all months—the increases ranged from 3.0% in February to 12.8% in August.
4. WestJet reported a decline in 2013 in its scheduled passenger load factor (a measure of the fullness of their aircraft), while Air Canada reported no change in its scheduled passenger load factor. Air Canada’s passenger load factor remained at 84.1%, while WestJet’s stood at 81.7%. The decline in the load factor for WestJet (-1.1 percentage points) was largely due to a stronger increase in capacity than in demand in most of the months. During the 12-month period, Air Canada’s load factor exceeded WestJet’s load factor nine times.
5. For 2013, the major Canadian air carriers reported a 1.1% increase in terms of turbo fuel consumed compared to 2012. Air Canada consumed 3.6 billion litres (-0.4%) of turbo fuel, while WestJet consumed 1.1 billion litres (+6.1%) of turbo fuel.