AIRLINES, AIRPORTS, AIRCRAFT: Domestic Capacity in Canada

This year we have expanded the depth of detail in our popular country by country air capacity statistics series. Every week Routesonline provides statistics highlighting airline and airport activity in an individual domestic market. We take a look at the last five year’s schedules as a snapshot and compare seat capacity, showing which airlines and airports are growing and which are constraining and identifying trends.

The data is all supplied by OAG Aviation using its OAG Schedules Analyser tool.


Scheduled Network Capacity in Canada

Our analysis of published schedules for the past five years shows that domestic air capacity in Canada has risen from 50,198,657 available seats in 2010 to 55,917,528 available seats in 2014. This represents an average annual growth of 2.6 per cent across the period. In the past year capacity increased 4.2 per cent.

Scheduled Network Capacity in Canada by Airline

WestJet Airlines remained the largest domestic carrier in Canada in 2014 after boosting its local capacity by 7.6 per cent in 2014 to 17.55 million seats. This has boosted its overall share of domestic capacity from 30.4 per cent in 2013 to 31.4 per cent in 2014.

Air Canada’s mainline business is the second largest domestic operator with a 26.3 per cent share, capacity up 3.7 per cent on 2013, while one of its regional partners Air Canada Jazz is the third largest operator with a 20.5 per cent share, capacity up 1.9 per cent on 2013.

Scheduled Network Capacity in Canada by Airport

Toronto’s Lester B Pearson International Airport is the largest domestic facility in Canada with a 17.4 per cent share of total available capacity within the country in 2014 with a 3.9 per cent growth in seats versus 2013. It is followed by Calgary International Airport (11.6 per cent) and Vancouver International Airport (11.5 per cent).

Victoria International Airport in British Columbia witnessed the largest rise in domestic capacity among Canada’s ten largest domestic airports in 2014 with available seats increasing 9.6 per cent versus 2013.

Scheduled Network Capacity in Canada by Aircraft Type

The pie chart below shows which aircraft types were most prevalent in Canada's domestic market. The schedule data shows the Boeing 737-700 (winglets) (73W) is the most widely used aircraft type in the country with a 19.6 per cent share of available seats although its overall network capacity declined between 2013 and 2014 by 4.1 per cent from 11.45 million seats to 10.97 million seats.

The second most utilised aircraft type in Canada’s domestic market is the Bombardier Dash 8-Q400 (DH4) with a 17.5 per cent share, while third most widely operated by network capacity is the Airbus A320 (320) with a 9.5 per cent share.

The biggest rises in annual capacity among the top ten aircraft types were recorded by the Bombardier Dash 8-Q400 (DH4) with a 31.2 per cent rise in available domestic seats in 2014 versus 2013 and the Airbus A320 (320) with a 17,2 per cent rise. The largest decline in annual capacity was recorded by the Airbus A319 (319) with a fall of 43.7 per cent versus 2013.

Image via www.freeflagicons.com

Richard Maslen

Richard Maslen has travelled across the globe to report on developments in the aviation sector as airlines and airports have continued to evolve and…