Sault airport seeing fewer passengers

The Sault Ste. Marie Airport is seeing its first year-over-year decline in passenger levels since the pandemic recovery began.

Although passenger numbers are only down one per cent compared to July of last year, CEO Terry Bos is concerned given the number of travellers passing through the airport continues to lag far behind pre-pandemic levels.

"We're only about 70 per cent recovered from where we were pre-pandemic and we expected that the growth would continue," said Bos.

"Now that it's already started to plateau, obviously the concern is maybe we're never going to get back to where we were before the pandemic, which is obviously a big concern for our operation."

Bos told CTV News that the latest numbers demonstrate that regional airports are not seeing the same rate of recovery as larger ones. He added some of the factors affecting local passenger totals are the ongoing slump in business and government travel, an industry-wide pilot shortage and more travellers opting to spend their vacations closer to home.

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"I think a lot of people have moved to vehicle traffic,” said Travis Anderson, the City of Sault Ste. Marie’s director of Tourism and Community Development.

“Particularly those that are kind of within the seven or eight hour range.” I think it's just…unfortunately, airline travel is just not as predictable as it was."

Anderson said that the public thinking that airline travel is just not as predictable as it was is unfortunate.

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