Halifax airport at 85% of pre-pandemic levels as recovery lags behind other cities

The Halifax airport has not recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic as quickly as other similar-sized cities, partly due to the loss of most Atlantic connections.

Senior leadership with the Halifax International Airport Authority gave an update to the city's community planning and economic development standing committee on Thursday.

They said that while Halifax is expecting to hit 3.5 million passengers for 2023, that's about 85 per cent of pre-pandemic levels and 10 per cent behind centres like Ottawa and Winnipeg.

"That feels really odd when Halifax is set to be the fastest-growing city in the country next year," Joyce Carter, the airport authority's president told councillors.

Carter said Halifax is dealing with the same industry-wide issues of limited aircraft and crew availability — but two other factors are hurting the Atlantic region especially hard.

There is still no Halifax service to Cape Breton, Prince Edward Island or New Brunswick, while the service to Newfoundland and Labrador remains at about half of pre-COVID levels. That's a major blow when St. John's alone was Halifax's third-biggest market, the authority said.

Returning these routes are key to return Halifax to its "hub status," Carter said, which can then attract more Canadian, American and international traffic.

"That is going to be a big challenge for us," Carter said.

Paul Brigley, the authority's chief financial officer, said they've also had difficulties bringing back routes into the United States. He said American carriers were mostly handling those services, but they've had more challenges getting crew and airplanes in the Atlantic region.

Brigley said across 2020-2022 the airport lost $90 million when travel shut down during the COVID-19 pandemic, so the authority had no choice but to add $150 million in debt "to keep the doors open."

While recovery is progressing, Brigley said passenger activity looks very different today than it did in 2019. There are now fewer flights with larger aircraft that tend to arrive in the same time frame. That makes it challenging to handle crowds of people all arriving at peak times.

The authority is expecting to welcome four million passengers next year, much closer to its 4.2 million pre-pandemic level.

In 2022, 3.1 million passengers came through the airport, according to the authority. The airport itself had a total economic output of $2.6 billion in Halifax Regional Municipality alone, with the roughly 12,000 employees bringing in $612 million in income.

Councillors were also told that many airport passengers stop at the tourism booth to ask about taking local transit into the city, but don't end up using it because they need exact change.

"We were surprised at the stats of how many passengers are eager to use it, and finding that a challenge," said Dean Bouchard, vice-president of airport planning and development.

Airport bus seeing more than 900 weekday passengers

The average daily number of passengers for Route 320, which runs from the urban centre to the airport, hit 914 on weekdays since the beginning of September, according to a municipal spokesperson. That fell to about 750 passengers on weekends and holidays.

Bouchard said they are working with Halifax Transit to find an easier way for visitors to pay for the airport bus until tap-to-pay machines are installed for the whole fleet, which is months down the road.

The city said a new app to pay for transit tickets via smartphones will come this fall.