AN INDUSTRY GROUNDED How the COVID-19 pandemic has affected air travel and what it means for Alberta airports By Shayna Wiwierski
Left: Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Grande Prairie Airport has had to restrict access to the airport to air passengers only inside the terminal.
Right: In 2019, the Grande Prairie Airport moved over 422,000 passengers, whereas by the end of 2020 they had only 125,000 pass through.
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lot of industries were hit hard when COVID-19 spread throughout the world early last
year. One of the hardest-hit ones? The airline industry. According to Statistics Canada, the number of passengers enplaned and deplaned at Canadian airports reached 162 million in 2019, which was an increase of 1.0 per cent compared with the previous year. 2019 was also the 10th consecutive annual increase in air passenger traffic following the economic slowdown of 2009. And then 2020 happened. In 2020, Statistics Canada says that the number of travelers to Canada from both the U.S. and overseas was down 93 per cent compared to December 2019. According to the Canadian Border Services Agency, from the last week of March 2019 until mid-February 2020, they counted 35.6 million travelers arriving on international flights in Canada, including from the United States. That number dropped to 1.9 million between March 2020 and February 2021. Of course, air passenger traffic wasn’t the only thing that changed in the aviation
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industry. The way that airports are now run have been modified to allow for proper social distancing, enhanced cleaning practices, and more. The Grande Prairie Airport, located in northwestern Alberta, services a catchment area of 275,000 people. They have a tworunway system and a 24/7 airport operation with scheduled service from both WestJet and Air Canada as their two main carriers. Brian Grant, CEO of the Grande Prairie Airport Commission, says that there has been a significant drop over the course of the last year thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. “The first three months of 2020 were pretty good months. They gave us about 56 per cent of our overall revenue for the entire year before the pandemic kicked in,” says Grant. “In 2019 we moved about 422,000 passengers and in 2020 at year end, even though we had three really good months at the beginning, we ended up with around 125,000. So, it was a significant drop over the year, about 70 per cent.” Aside from the decrease in air traffic, they have also seen a major reduction in
ALBERTA AIRPORTS MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION • 2021
service and access in the building. They have reduced staff by nearly 54 per cent in airport operations itself, not including the airlines and rental cars, which also had to lay people off. They also restrict access to the airport to air passengers only inside the terminal. Their restaurant operation has also been closed since the middle of 2020, and they went from 14 flights a day in 2019 down to three flights a day, with some days only having one flight a day. Currently, for those travelling from Grande Prairie, the only place they fly is Calgary. They previously flew to Edmonton as well, but that service was stopped in early 2020. Aside from scheduled service, the airport is also home to a firefighter base for forestry, as well as medevac traffic. They also get some corporate traffic and charters for work crews in oilfield activity, both of which have declined in the past year. Although the airport has seen a significant decline in traffic, Grant says that they still see a reasonable amount of activity when it comes to the workforce because of their location in the province and the industries they serve.
