An uptick in international passenger volumes last month wasn’t enough to hold off a year-over-year decline in total traffic figures as the Ottawa airport continues to see declining travel to and from the United States.
Roughly 408,000 people passed through the Ottawa International Airport last month, a decline of two per cent year-over-year.
The domestic traveller segment accounted for 338,515 passengers (down roughly 2,600 from last year) while the U.S. traveller segment added 46,477 passengers (down 7,000 from 2018). Monthly traffic from the U.S. has been dropping since this past June when United Airlines suspended its direct flights between Ottawa and Chicago.
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YOW’s silver lining in September was a slight boost to international traffic volumes. Some 22,935 people travelled overseas through Ottawa last month, up from 22,016 a year before.
The Ottawa airport’s total traffic numbers over the first three quarters of the year hit 3,885,920, roughly 30,000 passengers higher than figures at this time last year.
The need to better connect the National Capital Region to other global travel hubs dominated talk at the Ottawa Aviation Summit earlier this month, where business leaders discussed how a lack of direct international connections is hurting their bottom lines.
