There have been a slew of stories suggesting that advance airline bookings between the U.S. and Canada have collapsed, either because of tariffs or because Canadians are boycotting the U.S. Maybe they don’t want to become the 51st state, or just don’t like President Trump.
The claim, originating with travel data provider OAG, is that passenger bookings have plummeted 70% (“Passenger bookings on Canada – US routes are currently down by 70% compared to the same period last year”). That never made any sense, and I’ve noted in the comments on some blogs it appears to be based on a very limited sample of data that isn’t making apples-to-apples comparisons.
That’s a COVID-19 pandemic level collapse. I flew up to Canada a couple of weeks ago, my flight was pretty full, but I guess it’s every other flight that’s empty?
Meanwhile data from aviation analytics company Cirium shows that bookings are down – a bit – but nothing like the outlier numbers that OAG reports and are dominating headlines… while noting that we don’t have a full window into bookings through direct channels.
Airlines are pulling back on their transborder schedules a bit – around 3.5% for summer – and pricing has turned more attractive. Journalist Brian Sumers notes that Air Canada says the OAG report is simply untrue.
The Canadian dollar is weak. That’s holding back Canadian travelers. But about one million Canadians out of a population of 40 million have homes in the United States. They aren’t just staying away (though they mostly travel to the U.S. during the insufferable winters).
U.S. – Canada travel is down, and it’s likely economic activity is slowing more broadly. Headlines about a 70% decline though are just wrong. That would mean market abandonment at the sort of level we saw in late March 2020 and July 2020 without travel restrictions or a global pandemic.
@ Gary — Any big drop in demand definitely isn’t showing significantly in airfare prices. A big drop in demand could sharply reduce hotel prices since those can’t be cancelled easily like air routes.
I don’t give a damn about statistics. I can tell you that I live on a winter resort beach and the number of Canadian visitors is way down. I am in the winter rental business and although I was lucky enough to have a full occupancy this winter with my usual winter guest, my Canadian guest are not sure about next winter. They have been sure for several decades but next year is up in the air. I can also tell you that this winter I have been offered no fewer than two dozen properties by foreign owners on our resort beach wanting to sell. And none of my guests or owners have suggested that any of this has anything to do with money. They are all angry with our current administration. Our relationship with Canada and the rest of the world has been severely damaged.
Those million Canadians with a house in the U.S. (mentioned in this article) should be taxed at 1% (So a million dollar house or condo taxed at $10,000 per year in addition to usual property tax). That is what Canada does to Americans. Trump should do this but probably isn’t aware of the tax.
As for those Canadians with vacation homes in the US – I live not too far from Palm Springs, which is a favorite for those from BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan. Many of the Canadians own homes here. The majority are selling them off and not planning on returning any time soon. Don’t believe me? Check out Zillow (link below) and see how many houses have gone up on MLS in the last month or so.
https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/?searchQueryState=%7B%22isMapVisible%22%3Atrue%2C%22mapBounds%22%3A%7B%22west%22%3A-116.56955081103516%2C%22east%22%3A-116.16786318896484%2C%22south%22%3A33.59687594233106%2C%22north%22%3A33.86926038405048%7D%2C%22filterState%22%3A%7B%22sort%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3A%22globalrelevanceex%22%7D%7D%2C%22isListVisible%22%3Atrue%2C%22mapZoom%22%3A12%7D
I wouldn’t trust outlandish reports such as those suggesting travel is off by 70%. Typical media sensationalism.
Additionally, I would add one factor that might contribute to some reduced airline purchases are the dropping gas prices. Perhaps a few more people are opting to drive?
Demand is down. Bookings aren’t down 70%.
You have all these imbeciles on Netters claiming the entire world won’t come to America because Trump has created tariffs and is deporting illegal gang members. Or that Americans aren’t going to travel because of Trump’s tariffs. Like Al Bundy sits down with Peg, Bud and Kelly and says no Disney this year or no flying across the country to see Grandma because Trump passed tariffs or deported South American drug dealers.
Somehow they seem to forgot that two months after the supposed killer plague of March 2020 planes were back full. Yet the won’t fly because Trump said mean things about Venezuelan gang members.
I wonder if some of the advanced bookings decline could be due to “harvesting” behavior. Air Canada recently announced major points devaluations for both its own flights and for United flights. Perhaps some of the OTA advanced bookings decline is from Canadians with Air Canada points balances frantically making points bookings instead of cash bookings before the devaluation went into effect. The Air Canada points devaluation impacts Americans less because they are more likely to have transferrable points currencies like MR or UR (due to the higher interchange fees and therefore more generous signup bonuses and earning rates).
With regards to Derek’s comment “That is what Canada does to Americans.” – Actually we do that to all foreigners – the Americans were caught in the same net. What happened is that a lot of foreign money (primarily Asian) came in to Canada as a safe haven from their own countries – this bumped up the price of housing in Vancouver and Toronto to really high values where the average Canadian couldn’t afford it – think of $500,000 homes going up to 2-5 million in a space of 10 years. The tax was implemented to to penalize foreign buyers who would buy (jack up the local price) and not live there but rent it out (and not contribute to the local economy).
“There are three kinds of lies – lies, damned lies, and statistics.” – Mark Twain
All travel falls on a spectrum between discretionary and necessary. If you’re flying right now and it’s discretionary, you likely booked well in advance.
Discretionary land border trips, however, are less likely to be arranged months in advance. Land border crossings were down YoY by 20% in February. I would expect the fall in forward bookings to fall by more than that but by less than 70%.
Anecdotally, I know a number of people who are postponing making any cross-border travel plans until at least mid-April or May, given uncertainty related to, ahem, geopolitical instability in US relations related to trade and to, ahem, the US response to the Canadian election.
I’m sure the exchange rate doesn’t help, but the number of people who mentioned that as a factor is zero—and we work in a field where people talk about exchange rates for fun.
Elbows up my canadians!!!
Actually, I forgot to mention that Albertans (we live in the province next to BC) who don’t reside in B.C have to pay the surtax – so it is not just for foreign buyers only. Stop taking everything as being targeted to Americans
We would be discussing AC eminent BK filing and layoffs coming if this was true
My AA flight YVR-ORD 2 weeks ago were completely full except for the seat next to me 🙂 and across the aisle. Both MCE. And a couple boarding areas near ours were quite busy. So 70 pct seems a stretch.
thank you for this article, Gary.
the basis of the “bookings down 70%” was cherrypicking at its worst.
John is spot on. If this was true, Canadians would have done wonders at bankrupting their own airlines since they carry 2/3 of the traffic from the US to Canada.
There will be demand reductions that are related to the weaker CAD – which incidentally took its latest dive when the current president was elected in Nov – before he took office in January.
Delta kicks off earnings season in 2 weeks. They will be the first to be asked about US-Canada even though they have a pretty small presence in that market. United, with a JV w/ AC, should be soon after.
AC and UA will do wonders to downplay this because fear is wiping away billions of airline market capitalization – a far greater impact than for other industries.
WestJet and Air Canada, both Canadian airlines, have been reducing scheduled service on certain US runs.
So flights may still be full, but there are less of them.
The fact remains that advanced bookings are MASSIVELY down for April and beyond. Nothing in your post refutes this or offers any data, and everyone in the industry knows that OAG is highly reputable. You just make a comparison with the past (March). Apples and oranges. Irrelevant.
Will April come in at -75% overall? Obviously not. The OAG numbers tell that people who typically booked in advance no longer did since the orange one attacked Canada’s sovereignty. It also largely doesn’t affect business travel, except for the softening due to the heightened uncertainty and tariffs. It also doesn’t affect people who book at the last minute, so if the orange ones gets some sense beaten into him and changes policies, people’s minds can change.
Also, it doesn’t include the offsetting increase of Americans going to Canada to show economic support to an ally who’s been very generous to Americans (who can’t forget the hospitality at 9/11, the support and deaths for the various wars in the Gulf and Afghanistan, etc. etc.?)
But yeah, leisure destinations all over the US are hurting because of Canadian’s changed plans (including sales of properties), while Mexicans are rubbing their hands. And airlines’ forward schedules are starting to reflect more and more cuts between Canada and the US, with wholesale cuts (e.g. UA’s LAX-YYZ and AC’s YVR-IAD) and loads of frequency reductions.
BNN is reporting bookings are down 13% and driving was down 23% year over year for February. AC says it is using smaller planes or reducing frequency to deal with the drop. Westjet has redirected more planes to Mexico, the Caribbean and Europe.
The biggest impact will be to border states and I’m pretty sure that domestic tourism won’t cover that. Don’t hear many people looking forward to going to Fargo, ND or Great Falls, MT to spend money.
I think the FX rate doesn’t play that big an impact. Canadians are used to a weaker dollar, whether it’s against the USD, GBP or Euro. We will still travel, we just cut back on some expenses while there.
Gary is showing his bias again in this headline. That’s fine. It’s his website, after all. He can write love-notes to ‘dear leader’ for all I care.
Regardless of semantics, hyperbole, or sensationalism: It is undeniable that travel to the United States from abroad is indeed down, whether it’s from Canada, or elsewhere, by any metric, 70% or otherwise. And the reason is clear: It’s this administration and its policies.
Anyone who isn’t watching ‘state TV’ knows should know that we, the United States, under this administration, have betrayed our allies and harmed our trading partners. It’s the tariffs. It’s what He and JD did to Zelensky. It’s Signal-gate and at the Munich Security Conference earlier, wherein JD can’t help himself but to throw-shade at the Europeans. It’s the Greenland nonsense.
These are all unnecessary, self-inflicted wounds. And ‘red’ states are definitely going to pay the price. No more purchases of Kentucky Bourbon. Why buy a Ford, when a Toyota or VW (or dare I say BYD, gasp) is more reliable and less expensive to overseas markets.
The Canadians I know avoided their typical ‘snow bird’ winter in Florida this time. In fact, they’re selling their condo. They’ll go to the Caribbean, Europe, Australia/New Zealand instead. I can’t blame them. The once purple state has gone deep red, maybe even more so than even Texas.
@DesertGhost — Bah! If only @Mike P were here to see you quoting Twain. That guy loves to quote folks, often misquotes them, too. Speaking of, where’s Mike–he’s been so quiet lately. Hmm.
Leading indicators are often unreliable. But reliable indicators lag, often severely.
Leading indicators are useful in helping focus concurrent and lagging analysis efforts. They don’t need to be precisely correct to facilitate that, just directionally correct.
Anecdotal observation, the number of Canadians in Mexico this winter seems to be much lower than it normally is.
Señor Leff’s idea of insufferable winters is quite different than mine. Texas winters include cockroaches, and I consider that insufferable compared to fresh snow and ice-covered lakes and rivers outdoors and no Texas cockroach problem.
I love the CAD is weak nonsense as a justification.
It’s at the same level it was 5 years ago (and 9 years ago) and 3% lower than 2 years ago.
The exchange rate is in no way responsible for the drop in demand.
Interesting
Hopefully they stay home. The retired are buying homes in the South US and driving up housing prices.
Our young people can’t afford to compete with Canadian retires with cash
I know plus quarter of Canada is indians and dont speak English anyhow keep them arrogant Canadians in there own country they always have though they are to good for America that’s why none of them are speaking up for the triple terrifs we been paying them for decades and we decide to say make it fare or we will put 25 percent terrifs and boom were evil or our admin is horrible we have your jobs coming here now whole companies shutting there doors coming here to give our Americans jobs and yet all trump asked was for fairness in trade how is that so terrible huh o yeah just like Canada take take take never wanna give not even there own people 50 percent tax and crap healthcare
Most Canada/US flights people have been on recently that are full were more than likely booked months ago….before all the political drama. Let’s see what the load factors are in 6 months.
Personally….whatever happens politically….I just hope it results in the Fairmont in Banff to drop from insane prices to something in the ball park of just expensive.
@1990 the Canadians that go to Mexico in Florida are doing that yes in the winter and they’re not going anywhere else right now because the Canadian dollar really sucks and Trudeau really screwed them over. So it’s not all on the 60 days that Trump’s been in office so you can’t blame it all on that.
I suggest the author is out of touch with Canada and Canadians. The US departure area was totally empty at YVR last week. Not so in international or domestic. They were busy. And loads of US routes have been canceled.
Here is a conundrum.
If Canada becomes the 51st state, it would add 41,258,599 new citizens to our population.
According to current laws there are only allowed 435 seats available in the house.
the number of seats is one seat for every 761,169 citizens, therefore Canada would get 54 seats in the house. In order to achieve this number, there are several states that would lose representatives.
How is the orange turd going to deal with this?
They will also get two senators (probably democrats)
Considering how much the Canadian citizens hate our current president, chance are most of the reps would also be independent or Democrat.
When all is said and done, I would expect to see, perhaps, a 20% drop in Canadian visitors to the US this summer. Which is a lot! But these higher numbers are nuts. People cross the border for various reasons, but few cross on a whim. “Feelings” won’t dip the number beyond 20%. And that’s a Captain Obvious analysis.
This author is the epitome of poor journalism.
“I don’t like the data but I took a flight and it wasn’t empty” makes you sound like a dolt.
To have a theory based on the number of people on your own flight, no matter times you have taken it recently, is dumb. Sorry to be blunt.
Airlines have simply cut the number of flights and routes they are running so their planes are not flying 1/2 full or in one case recently, with just one passenger. Fewer planes and far fewer seats in the air available for you to sit in right now means the flights that ARE in the air less often have more people.
A final example of the decline: A family member works at WestJet (Canada). The seasonal, direct flight from Calgary, AB to New York (La Guardia) has been cancelled due to a lack of pre-season ticket sales.
I think you’re being a bit disengenuous Gary, The article expressly say Canada to US travel, so you flying up to Canada is irrelevant. I’m sure Canadians who own houses in the US still come, why wouldn’t they? But vacationers aren’t coming, so that’s not only air travel $s but, hotel $s, restaurant $s, entertainment $s, car rental, etc.
The article has zero to do with northbound travel.
Canadians are full of it.
Look up how many tarrifs they have on USA goods pre-Trump.
They’re just upset because the USA is finally calling them out.
@Warren Trout Why should Canadians get to own homes here? It seems bizarre.They aren’t citizens. How many own a home in Kansas? No, they own them in AZ, Fl and make it more crowded for US citizens to buy a home. Florida housing prices have skyrocketed and Arizona’s went up a lot during the pandemic making it harder for Americans to buy. Oh, but they spend some money during the winter at restaurants and golf courses I guess. Who cares. Why is it a benefit for foreigners to own places in the US.
It seems the US is for everyone but the actual citizens. We also have way too much legal immigration.
@EgE: orange soda would “annex” (not a thing) CA as a territory, so no voting rights, no extra senators, no representatives, etc.
The Mark Twain quote – Clemens attributed that to UK PM Benjamin Disraeli. So “Lies, damn lies, and statistics” … but it doesn’t matter who says it because
ALL THESE NUMBERS are with no scientific basis as the companies with the business don’t publish raw numbers.
So yes, based on made up compilations of raw sewage that is unsupported and can’t be duplicated “visitors from Canada” (wait, are those Canadian citizens? Dual citizens? Snowbirds? People transitting? we don’t know) are down between 7% and 70%. That order of magnitude difference (10x) makes it clear the data are not useful from which to draw a conclusion.
As posters have said, bookings are down, so this isn’t a “nothing burger” but if Gary says (on his website, which is his right) it’s 70%, it’s likely not.
So, just so I understand this, Gary is saying that a company that has been analyzing the airline industry for nearly a century and is relied upon by most of the major players in the industry has suddenly gone completely insane and his basis for this assertion is that it just doesn’t seem possible? Must say I am tiring of his BS since the orange one got elected. It has become obvious that he has drunk the koolaid
@SC Canada should ban foreign ownership of houses/condos. I can’t fathom why they or the US allow it. The US should do the same. People in parts of the US like California can’t afford the housing prices either. Many other cities have had prices skyrocket making it hard for locals to buy.
I teach stats and research methods. Rule #1 is “Don’t simply accept results, particularly extreme results that you agree with”
I did not read all of the post and maybe I should have before I shared my observations. I am in Europe tonight specifically the UK. People do not want to travel to the U.S. because of the stories they are hearing about customs and border crossings. We have a close friend who is from Canada, married an American and lives in the U.S.. She goes to visit her family, she has been told by an attorney and has shared stories of discussions with friends who have been subject to additional scrutiny and examination. I saw a video post today where a family decided they would go through with their summer plans in the U.S. even though they were advised not to because of all the money they spent on an RV and a camp ground membership. I am not surprised travel is down based on what I am hearing. I have no idea what the real numbers are I know people are concerned.
Now I understand why I feel the sense of being surrounded by morons when I’m at the DMV. Reading these comments pretty much confirms it. You can all bask in the hell you create. I’m sure it will be lovely
For everyone saying Canadians /foreigners are selling their homes – good! We are short so many in the USA. Maybe prices will come down. I’ve always thought we should restrict home purchases to those that live here full time, with a hefty surtax on those with second+ homes.
The sad part is that anyone selling out of anger, is, indeed, cutting off their nose to spite their face. After all, only 4 years of a presidency and then power shifts.
But, sell sell! I want your second home to be my first.
So what? We f’d over our neighbor to the north and it’s time for the USA to pay! We deserve everything coming to us! We have an angry, dumbed down society that knows nothing of the world and our position in it. I say, bring it on! It’s time for America to wake up! If that’s at all possible!
There is some truth in reports of a decline of incoming Canadians. A local report.
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/03/20/travel/video/canada-trump-maine-travel-cancellations-digvid
$550 for an economy class flight between YUL and ORD will keep a lot of people away. I travel the route several times annually and the prices have gotten ridiculous. These outrageous prices in general, plus costly hotels with so many surcharges, are probably the real reason travel is slowing down.
The internet is full of false news. People will believe anything they read and I will too.
My sister lives north of Seattle, about 60 miles from Canada. She competes in a lot of dog agility trials. At least half of the competitors are from British Columbia. Most of them have sent this sort of message: “we know our American friends in the trials aren’t Trumpers, but we simply cannot attend trials in the US, under these circumstances.”
I live in Palm Springs, I can tell you Canadians are leaving here and not coming back. Many have put their homes up for sale. Trump is an ass and is destroying the US. Putin is sitting back and laughing.