Airlines are having to reshape their plans ahead of the peak summer travel season as Canadians are avoiding trips to the United States amid a growing trade war between the two neighbors.
A grassroots effort by Canadians to boycott everything American—from grocery products to tourist attractions—had already set off alarms throughout the U.S. travel industry, which estimates multibillion-dollar losses.
Canadian airlines are eliminating tens of thousands of seats to the United States in April, a peak period when Canadians travel to warmer destinations. Reductions range from 7% by Air Canada to 25% by Flair Airlines, a discount carrier, according to Visual Approach Analytics, an aviation research firm.
Travel agencies, in response, are also changing how they advertise flight packages.
“We have completely stopped promoting the U.S. due to the negative consumer reaction,” Flemming Friisdahl, CEO of The Travel Agent Next Door, a Canadian company with 1,500 travel agents in its network, told The New York Times.
The agency is selling significantly fewer trips to the United States, he added, as travelers redirect their spending to destinations in Europe and elsewhere.
Canadian residents made about 586,000 trips to the United States in February, a 13% drop from the same month last year, according to Canada’s national census agency. A recent survey also found that the number of car trips across the border in February fell to 1.2 million, down from about 1.5 million in February 2024.
Seasonal Canadian travelers who spend part of the year in sunny U.S. states, known as ‘snowbirds’, are contributing to the changing tide.
Florida is the destination feeling the biggest impact from the seat reductions on flights from Canada, the Visual Approach Analytics report said, with airports in Fort Lauderdale, Fort Myers, and Orlando facing cuts of up to 30% in April.
Major U.S. airlines are also responding to the drop in demand from Canadians.
Scott Kirby, CEO of United Airlines, recently said that the airline had reduced the frequency of several routes to Canada due to a “significant drop in Canadian traffic” to the United States.
United canceled a new daily route between Toronto and Los Angeles that it had planned to start in May and said it would also reduce the frequency of other existing routes to Canada.
Source: The New York Times