From his office overlooking the runway at Gander International Airport, Reg Wright can see all the flights coming into and leaving his corner of Newfoundland.

But in recent years these aircraft sightings have become increasingly rare.

“In Newfoundland, we have a saying called ‘fisherman’s widow,’ which generally means any person who looks out to sea and sees their husband returning. During the pandemic, I’ve spent a lot of time looking out the window, counting numbers and wondering when the recovery will come,” Wright said.

It still counts.

The airport has lost four routes since 2019, including a WestJet route to Halifax, he said. “A third of our passengers have disappeared without a trace… We are far from recovered.”

Gander serves as a microcosm for numerous cities across the country. While total domestic passenger numbers in Canada are currently at pre-COVID-19 levels, air travel to smaller communities and even mid-sized cities has declined, driving up airfares and making parts of the country less well-connected.

According to the Canadian Airports Council, passenger capacity at Canada’s 30 largest airports has increased on average to 98 percent of 2019 levels. The next 30 airports are at just under 70 percent.

The reason for the rebound in travel is an increase on metropolitan routes. According to figures provided to the Canadian Press by aviation data firm Cirium, over the past five years, flight traffic on Vancouver-Montreal has increased by 19 percent, Toronto-Vancouver by 12 percent, Calgary-Vancouver by 10 percent and Ottawa-Calgary by a whopping 51 percent.

Accordingly, airfares on these routes fell by two to eleven percent despite galloping inflation and widespread price increases.

However, regional air traffic is still well below 2019 levels.

A random sample reveals it. The number of direct flights fell by 49 percent for Sault Ste. Marie-Toronto, 41 percent for Regina-Calgary and 100 percent for Quebec City-Rouyn-Noranda between May 2019 and May 2024. A car journey between these cities would take at least five to seven hours without stops.

At the same time, according to Cirium, fares for flights between these city pairs increased by 54 percent, 16 percent and 173 percent, respectively.

Airports in remote communities serve as central hubs for essential services.

“If you’re in the Yukon and you have to travel to Vancouver for your medical appointments, these jobs are essential… whether it’s fighting fires, transporting healthcare workers or even stocking groceries on the shelves of our supermarket stores,” said Monette Pasher, president of the airport council.

A lack of timely flight access also creates an economic disadvantage for communities.

The Gander, NL airport is seen on Thursday, July 6, 2023. (Sarah Smellie/The Canadian Press)

“Aviation is truly a load-bearing wall that holds our country together. And there are many rural and remote communities like my own that are completely dependent on air travel to deliver their economic and social benefits and to be meaningful participants in the global village,” Wright said.

“There is a lot at stake.”

Fewer flights can also make holiday and business travel more difficult, as overall travel times increase and sometimes result in tiring stopovers.

The lack of departures has led some travelers to look for flights south from places such as Detroit, Plattsburgh, New York, and Bellingham, Washington, resulting in revenue losses for Canadian airlines and airports.

There are several reasons for the decline in regional flights.

During the pandemic, airlines took the opportunity to streamline their fleet by replacing older aircraft with newer, larger ones. The newer planes are more efficient, as are business models that operate fewer flights and carry more passengers over longer distances. More customers per flight means higher profit margins, while fewer takeoffs mean lower fuel costs, since planes burn so much fuel when taking off.

A shortage of pilots, especially at regional airlines, and rising salaries are other reasons for the supply shortage following a decline in flight school enrollment during the Covid-19 pandemic.

“You can’t get pilots out of a machine. It takes time,” said Wright.

“When pilot costs reach a tipping point, as they have over the past three years, it becomes virtually impossible to amortize a pilot’s salary across 17 seats,” added Duncan Dee, former COO of Air Canada.

Competition on many routes has also decreased. WestJet withdrew from virtually all short-haul markets east of Winnipeg during the pandemic. Air Canada followed suit, staying in central and eastern Canada while scaling back its operations in the west.

In Cape Breton, residents must now transfer via Montreal or Toronto to fly to Halifax after both airlines reduced their flights from a total of 240 per month to zero.

“For the first time in 75 years, all of our daily flight operations have been cancelled,” Pasher, who lives in the area, said of the airport in Sydney, NS.

She and others are calling for an increase in funding from the federal Airports Capital Assistance Program. This program finances the modernization of smaller airports, but the $38 million cap has remained unchanged since 2000. The airports are demanding $95 million annually.

Other experts say more direct support for regional flights is needed, pointing to the south of the border. The US Essential Air Service program ensures scheduled flights to hundreds of small communities by subsidizing air services that would otherwise not be profitable enough for the airlines bidding for the contracts.

“We have left the profitability of regional services to the market,” said John Gradek, who teaches aviation management at McGill University.

Back in Gander, where the resilience and hospitality of the residents became known worldwide through the Broadway hit “Come From Away” – the play describes their experiences in hosting more than 6,500 travelers from 38 planes who arrived at the airport on September 11th – Wright takes stock.

“Large crowds in Pearson or Trudeau say nothing of the fact that there are rural markets from coast to coast that are really on the brink of collapse in terms of air connectivity.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published August 11, 2024.