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  1. For the 12-month period from January to December 2014, the two major Canadian air carriers flew 45.1 million passengers on scheduled and charter services, up 5.8% from the same period in 2013. Air Canada (25.5 million) and WestJet (19.7 million) reported record passenger volumes for the period. In 2014, both carriers reported their highest volume of passenger traffic in August.
  2. On average, each passenger on scheduled services travelled 2,729 kilometres in 2014, up 2.0% compared with 2013. The average passenger trip length ranged from 3,271 kilometres in November to 3,695 kilometres in June for Air Canada, and from 1,595 kilometres in October to 1,821 kilometres in March for WestJet.
  3. Both carriers increased their traffic and passenger capacity in 2014. Traffic totalled 123.1 billion passenger-kilometres, up 7.9% from the same period in 2013. Capacity rose 7.7% to 147.7 billion available seat-kilometres, as international growth (+9.0%) for scheduled services outstripped domestic growth (+5.4%). Air Canada and WestJet also posted their highest traffic and capacity in August. Air Canada’s traffic and passenger capacity increased in nine of the 12 months, while WestJet’s rose in all months. The increases for Air Canada for the April to December period were largely due to its new leisure airline, Air Canada rouge, which began operations in July 2013. In this publication, data for Air Canada include data for Air Canada rouge as of April 2014.
  4. These carriers together recorded a slightly higher passenger load factor (83.5%) in 2014 for their scheduled services than in a year earlier (83.4%), as the increase in demand for travel outpaced the rise in capacity offered by Air Canada. WestJet’s passenger load factor stood at 81.4% (-0.3 percentage points), while Air Canada’s reached 84.3% (+0.2 percentage points). The decline in the load factor for WestJet was largely due to a stronger increase in capacity than in demand in six of the 12 months. During the 12-month period, Air Canada’s load factor exceeded WestJet’s load factor nine times.
  5. In 2014, the volume of turbo fuel consumed totalled 4.9 billion litres, up 4.4% from a year earlier. Air Canada consumed 3.7 billion litres (+3.9%) of turbo fuel, while WestJet consumed 1.2 billion litres (+6.0%) of turbo fuel.
  6. These carriers increased flying hours by 4.4% in 2014, logging 1.3 million hours on scheduled and charter services.
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