Canada-U.S. Airport Traffic Ends 18-Month Slide, Up 5.9% but Still Below 2024: StatCan

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Canada’s long-running decline in air traffic to the United States has finally broken — although the numbers show the cross-border travel relationship has not returned to where it was two summers ago.

Statistics Canada says 1.4 million passengers were screened for U.S.-bound flights at Canada’s eight largest airports in August 2026, up 5.9% from a year earlier. It was the first year-over-year increase after 18 consecutive months of declines. Yet transborder traffic was still 5.9% below August 2024 levels, underscoring how much travel patterns changed during 2025. The comparison also carries an important complication: an Air Canada flight-attendant strike disrupted thousands of flights in August 2025, making the year-over-year rebound look stronger than an ordinary comparison might suggest.

An 18-Month Losing Streak Finally Comes to an End

The most striking number in Statistics Canada’s August report is not simply the 5.9% increase. It is what came before it. Transborder screened passenger traffic had declined year over year for 18 consecutive months through July 2026. As recently as July, U.S.-bound traffic was still down 0.9% from the same month in 2025, with approximately 1.5 million passengers screened for transborder flights.

August finally reversed that pattern. About 1.4 million passengers were screened for U.S.-bound flights, 5.9% more than in August 2025. The turnaround provides another indication that the dramatic pullback in cross-border travel that began during 2025 may be easing. Still, one positive month does not erase a year and a half of declines. August marks a meaningful change in direction, but the longer-term comparison shows that Canada-U.S. air travel remains in a rebuilding phase rather than having completely returned to its previous trajectory.

The 2024 Comparison Shows How Much Ground Is Still Missing

A year-over-year increase can sound like a complete recovery until the comparison window is widened. Statistics Canada reported that U.S.-bound screened passenger traffic in August 2026 remained 5.9% below August 2024. That earlier period is particularly useful because it predates the major shift in Canadian travel behaviour seen through much of 2025.

July told an even more pronounced story. Transborder passenger traffic was 8.7% below July 2024 levels despite being only 0.9% lower than July 2025. The narrowing of that gap by August is encouraging for airlines and airports, but it also illustrates why the latest 5.9% annual increase requires context. In August 2025, U.S.-bound screened traffic had fallen 11.2% from August 2024. In other words, the latest increase is partly a rebound from a particularly weak period rather than evidence that Canada-U.S. airport traffic has returned to the volumes recorded two years earlier.

Toronto and Montréal Are Recovering Faster Than Vancouver

The recovery was far from uniform across Canada’s biggest airports. Toronto Pearson recorded a 13.2% year-over-year increase in screened passengers heading to the United States in August. Montréal-Trudeau was close behind with an 11.7% increase. Those double-digit gains helped push the national transborder total into positive territory for the first time in a year and a half.

Vancouver International moved in the opposite direction. Its U.S.-bound screened passenger traffic remained 3.4% below August 2025. The contrast is important because transborder traffic is heavily concentrated at Canada’s largest airports. Statistics Canada has previously reported that Toronto, Vancouver, Montréal and Calgary together account for more than 90% of the country’s screened U.S.-bound passenger traffic. The regional differences also continued a pattern visible in July, when Toronto managed a 1.6% gain while Vancouver, Montréal and Calgary were still reporting year-over-year declines in their transborder passenger counts.

The Air Canada Strike Makes the August Comparison Unusual

August 2025 was not a normal month for Canadian aviation. Statistics Canada specifically cautioned that passenger volumes were affected by an Air Canada flight-attendant strike that lasted almost four days and resulted in thousands of cancelled flights. That disruption created a weaker-than-usual comparison base for the August 2026 numbers.

The effect can be seen in last year’s statistics. Overall screened traffic at the eight largest Canadian airports slipped 0.3% year over year in August 2025, while U.S.-bound traffic plunged 11.2%. Toronto Pearson’s transborder passenger count fell 15.5%, while Montréal-Trudeau dropped 17.9%. Vancouver declined 5.4%. That means part of the dramatic rebound recorded at Toronto and Montréal this August reflects traffic returning after an abnormally disrupted month. It does not invalidate the recovery, but it does make the 2024 comparison especially valuable. Against that cleaner benchmark, U.S.-bound traffic across the country remains below its earlier level.

Domestic Flying Is Still Growing Faster

While U.S.-bound traffic is finally showing signs of improvement, domestic air travel remains one of the strongest parts of Canada’s aviation market. Statistics Canada counted 3.0 million passengers screened for domestic flights in August, an increase of 6.8% from August 2025. It was the seventh consecutive month in which domestic traffic led growth on a year-over-year basis.

Seven of Canada’s eight largest airports posted year-over-year increases in domestic screened passenger traffic, with Edmonton the only exception. The domestic total was also more than twice the approximately 1.4 million passengers screened for U.S.-bound flights during the month. The pattern fits a broader change documented by Statistics Canada during 2025. Canadians made 7.1 million fewer visits to the United States than in 2024, while domestic visits increased by roughly five million. Even as American destinations begin attracting more traffic again, the data suggest that more Canadian travel spending and passenger activity has remained closer to home.

Non-U.S. International Travel Has Also Gained Ground

The United States is not the only international option competing for Canadian travellers. Screened traffic for international flights outside the United States reached approximately 1.7 million passengers in August, an increase of 5.0% from a year earlier. Toronto Pearson alone processed more than 47,000 additional passengers in that category compared with August 2025, representing growth of 6.4%.

The shift toward destinations beyond the United States was already visible throughout 2025. Statistics Canada found that Canadian residents made about 1.3 million more overseas visits that year than in 2024, while visits to the United States fell by 7.1 million. Leisure travel was particularly notable: Canadian leisure visits to the United States declined 21.5%, or roughly 3.2 million visits, while overseas leisure visits increased 12.2%. Those decisions help explain why a rebound in U.S.-bound airport traffic does not automatically mean the travel patterns established over the previous year will disappear.

Canadians Are Returning to the U.S. More Often — But the Gap Remains Large

Separate Statistics Canada border-crossing figures provide another way to measure the recovery. In August 2026, Canadian residents recorded approximately 2.6 million return trips from the United States by air and automobile, an 8.8% increase from August 2025. It was the fifth consecutive month in which the combined total increased on a year-over-year basis.

Air travel alone also improved. Canadian-resident return trips from the United States by air were up 3.6% compared with August 2025. But those air trips were still 22.7% below August 2024 levels. Automobile travel showed an even larger two-year gap, remaining 27.4% below August 2024 despite a 9.9% annual increase. These figures measure border crossings rather than passengers screened at Canadian airports, so they should not be treated as identical datasets. Taken together, however, they point in a similar direction: Canada-U.S. travel is recovering from unusually weak 2025 levels without yet returning to the volumes seen before the pullback.

Americans Flying Into Canada Are Showing a Stronger Recovery

Cross-border air travel is a two-way market, and the latest numbers show an interesting difference between Canadian and American travellers. Statistics Canada estimated that U.S. residents made nearly 630,000 trips to Canada by air in August 2026, a 6.8% increase from August 2025. Combined air and automobile visits by Americans reached roughly 2.4 million, increasing 2.4% year over year.

Unlike Canadian-resident air returns from the United States, U.S.-resident air arrivals have also moved above their August 2024 level. Statistics Canada recorded approximately 611,500 American arrivals by air in August 2024, compared with roughly 629,600 in August 2026. That distinction matters for airports, hotels, restaurants and tourism businesses that depend on inbound spending. The broader trend is also persistent: August marked the seventh consecutive month in which total U.S.-resident trips to Canada increased year over year, suggesting that inbound demand has recovered more decisively than Canadian outbound travel to the United States.

Canada’s Overall Summer Air Market Was Still Growing

The cross-border weakness has not prevented Canada’s overall aviation market from expanding. Across June, July and August 2026, approximately 17.2 million passengers were screened at the country’s eight largest airports. That was 2.8% higher than during the same three-month period in 2025. August alone produced 6.1 million screened passengers, an increase of 6.1% year over year.

Other aviation data point in the same general direction. NAV CANADA reported that its weighted charging units — a measure that reflects flight volumes, aircraft size and distance flown in Canadian-controlled airspace — increased 4.9% in August compared with a year earlier. Statistics Canada also reported particularly strong overall August passenger growth at Toronto Pearson, up 10.2%, and Vancouver International, up 6.7%. The result is a Canadian air market that is expanding overall even though one of its historically important segments, travel between Canada and the United States, remains below its earlier peak.

The Economic Stakes Go Beyond Airport Security Lines

Passenger numbers matter because air travel feeds directly into accommodation, restaurants, transportation, entertainment and other tourism-related industries. Statistics Canada reported $28.5 billion in Canadian tourism spending during the second quarter of 2026, up 0.3% from the previous quarter after adjusting for inflation and seasonal patterns. Spending by international visitors increased 1.0%, while domestic tourism spending was essentially unchanged.

Tourism supported approximately 699,000 jobs during the quarter, and real tourism GDP increased 0.4%. International visitors accounted for 25.6% of Canadian tourism spending. Those numbers explain why sustained growth in cross-border air travel would have effects beyond airlines themselves, particularly in major gateway cities such as Toronto, Montréal and Vancouver. August provides evidence that one of the weakest pieces of Canada’s travel market is improving. The important question now is whether that improvement survives beyond a month with an unusually weak 2025 comparison and continues closing the still-visible gap with 2024.

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