Saskatchewan travellers 'in limbo right now' as local airports experience mounting issues

Mounting issues surround air travel right now across the country but Saskatchewan is experiencing a perfect storm, according to a business expert.

Jean Wood is from Manchester England and has been here for a month visiting her kids and grandkids.

 “I was flying to Toronto, and was in Frankfurt when I missed a flight, then it was all good,” Wood told CTV News.

Hers was a minor delay, and the only issue she faced on her travels.

Wood seems to be one of the lucky ones with all of the issues travellers are seeing, especially in Saskatchewan.

“It’s a perfect storm of factors we’ve seen over the past weeks with the Sunwing issue, of them cancelling operations until early February and as of next Monday, Air Canada cancelling direct service to Calgary,” Keith Willoughby, Dean of The Edwards School of Business at the University of Saskatchewan told CTV News.

Willoughby admits that it seems like we’re regressing back to a time when there weren’t as many air travel options here. Air Canada for example is choosing to fly bigger planes, so sending them from bigger centres is preferred over Saskatchewan.

“That means places like Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal, which unfortunately leaves the Saskatchewan traveller in limbo right now and it’s an unfortunate set of circumstances facing Saskatchewan residents,” he said.

Those circumstances could result in increased prices because of supply and demand, according to Willoughby.

Saskatoon airport officials are seeing larger airports being prioritized in terms of staffing and departures.

“Probably as a result of the pandemic, there’s a strategic shift in how they’re managing their networks and how they’re choosing to rebuild their networks and where they’re choosing to focus,” CJ Dushinski, VP of Business Development with Skyxe told CTV News.

The bottom line in all of this is that Saskatchewan travellers get fewer direct flights and are more likely to have convoluted itineraries – sometimes travelling to Toronto to get to a western destination according to Dushinski.

Okanagan traveller Michael Perkins was leaving the Saskatoon airport Tuesday and was said he was pleasantly surprised by how smooth his travel was looking, which wasn’t the case before Christmas.

“It was everything that the flight two weeks ago wasn’t when I got stuck in Calgary. I had to rent a car and got here and was told there were no flights,” he said.

Because of that, he arrived four hours early to be safe.

“This morning when I saw the fog, I thought 'oh no,' but everything seems to be getting out so I’m hoping,” he said.

Things have been improving slowly and may not be as bad as they appear, according to Saskatoon airport officials as they are seeing almost as many available seats on flights now as in 2019.

“Operations have evened out across the country so we’re happy to see how things are working right now,” she said.

And from a business perspective, Willoughby expects the air travel market to go back to pre-pandemic levels in a year or two with demand staying steady in Saskatoon as the tech sector requires flights to fulfill their needs.

He cautions airlines not to ignore the demand in Saskatoon and the need here for convenient and accessible travel.

“Culturally we as citizens in Saskatchewan have an expectation to get to places, so airlines would be unwise to ignore this Saskatoon situation,” Willoughby said.