Choice of flight times to remain limited at northeastern Ontario airports

Air travellers in northeastern Ontario will never again see the frequency of flights they enjoyed prior to the pandemic, according to managers at three small airports in the region.

As the industry continues to take steps to return to prosperity, regional airports are still advocating to regain their corner of the market with Air Canada and Porter.

Chris Pollesel is the manager of passenger experience at the Greater Sudbury Airport.

Reliability of flights returned in 2023, improving customer service, said Pollesel, but the airport continues discussions to bolster the flight schedule and offer more options.

However, he said it's a tough time with a national pilot shortage that has airlines concentrating on using larger aircraft than they used to for connections to the hub of Toronto.

That means more seats are becoming available for passengers but choice of times to fly is still limited.

Currently, he said Air Canada provides two flights a day and Porter one to Toronto and back each day, seven days a week.

"Previously we had, say, you know, six, seven, eight flights a day on those smaller aircraft," said Pollesel. "We likely won't see that ever again, at the moment or for the foreseeable future, but we will still have those same number of seats, if not more, departing Sudbury once that recovery does happen for us."

He said the airport continues to advocate for passengers, and would like to include a direct flight to Ottawa at some point.

Typically, there is more flexibility for travellers in the summer, he said, but it's not clear yet what the carriers have in mind.

The situation is similar at the airport in Sault Ste Marie.

The President and CEO of the Sault Ste Marie Airport Development Corporation, Terry Bos, says traffic from small regional airlines such as Bearskin is back to normal but the larger carriers are still not offering the schedule that they used to.

He says passengers are somewhat frustrated with the lack of options.

"Certainly it's a little difficult when you only have two flights a day with each airline going out and back [to Toronto] So it does limit you a bit, but two flights is certainly much better than one flight a day because then your options are really limited," he said. 

Bos remains hopeful there will eventually be more choice for travellers.

"Back in the day when they had the smaller aircraft, we were actually up to six or seven Air Canada flights a day. But now that they're flying larger aircraft, I don't think we'll ever see the six or seven again. But to get back to that four or five would certainly be great."

Lack of choice is being felt most keenly at the Jack Garland Airport in North Bay where it has a single Air Canada flight departing each day at noon to Toronto.

Manager Bryan Avery says Porter has dropped its service to the city entirely and doesn't know if it will return.

For the time being, he says the airport can keep operating although it is challenging, and is working to secure at least another flight for the summer schedule.

Avery says the trend toward larger planes that seat 78 instead of 30 as they used to pre-pandemic has been hard on revenue at his airport but North Bay is not alone.

"I think our situation is very much similar to many regional airports across the country that are serviced by not only Air Canada but other other airlines," he said. "It's likely that this is the same across the board."