Air Traffic Trends – A Look Back At 2022
Airline Traffic Monitor – January 2023
Key Points
In our latest Airline Traffic Monitor, we take a look back at last year’s air traffic trends both globally and in key regions. Looking at Canada specifically, we would note the following: - Canadian air traffic continued its recovery in December, with passengers through the 17 largest airports totalling 4.7MM. This is up 13% M/M from November’s total of 4.1MM passenger and up 70% Y/Y. We would note that Canadian air traffic in December also displayed normal seasonal trends
– Canadian air traffic was up 14% M/M back in 2019. Comparing to December 2019, Canadian December air passenger traffic was down 10%. - Looking at the full year, Canadian air passengers totalled 46.3MM for 2022, more than doubling 2021’s total of 17MM passengers but still down 25% from 2019’s total of 62.1MM passengers. Air traffic in Canada started the year on a soft note (~45% of 2019 levels between January – March) given the travel restrictions at the time. The pace of recovery picked up significantly after the lifting of restrictions in April, reaching roughly 85% of 2019 levels by Summer peak season and ending the year at a high note of 90% of 2019 levels.
- Looking at early-January data, we are seeing some sequential softness in Canadian air traffic which is on par with seasonal trends. For reference, the seven-day average air passengers through the 17 largest airports came in at 134,710 on January 15, 2023, down 5% from 141,913 on December 15, 2022. That said, recent comments from TRZ on its booking curve suggest travel intentions amongst Canadians remain positive.
- Looking at web traffic data for the Canadian airline websites and travel websites, these continue to trend above pre-pandemic levels. While web traffic is not a perfect correlation to air travel trends, we continue to see them as a proxy of future intentions to travel. The positive web traffic trend is also supportive of our view that the strong Summer for air travel last year was not enough to satisfy the pent-up demand in the market.
Net-net, while there are concerns we are entering a recession, air traffic data continues to support our view that the Canadian airlines will benefit from a countercyclical recovery given the pent-up demand to travel. We remain positive on the Canadian aviation sector looking out to 2023.