Abbotsford International Airport hits new annual passenger volume record

Abbotsford International Airport terminal building expansion. (YXX)

With nine months of the year elapsed, Abbotsford International Airport (YXX) has already made a new all-time historic annual record for passenger volumes.

A new annual record has already been created, but with three months still to go in 2023, the final tally is up in the air. In September 2023, YXX already surpassed its previous record of 1,008,716 passengers achieved in 2019.

As of this week, YXX is forecasting 1.2 million passengers by the end of 2023, which represents not only a full rebound from the pandemic but the surpassing of pre-pandemic volumes. If realized, this would be a year-over-year growth of about 21%.

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The airport also came close to reaching pre-pandemic levels in 2022, when 992,712 passengers were recorded. YXX passenger volumes dropped to about 316,000 in 2020 and 511,400 in 2021 due to the pandemic.

The strong volumes in 2022 and 2023 represent a continuation of YXX’s strong growth in the years leading up to the pandemic. The airport’s annual passenger volumes climbed from 487,833 in 2015 to 842,212 in 2018, with the latter two years of this period seeing a year-over-year growth of 25%.

This past summer, YXX saw up to 7,400 passengers daily.

“After a couple extremely challenging years for the air-travel industry, we are thrilled Abbotsford International Airport is having a record-breaking year,” said Ross Siemens, the mayor of Abbotsford and the chair of the Abbotsford Airport Authority, in a statement. YXX is owned and operated by the City of Abbotsford.

“Since opening in 1997, our airport has been a key asset for Abbotsford as the cultural and economic hub of the Fraser Valley. Its strategic location in one of the largest aerospace regions (including Washington State) in the world, and its world-class infrastructure make it an ideal hub for aviation activities and air travel.”

According to the airport authority, its strong growth can be attributed to not only the recovery of the global aviation industry but also YXX’s lack of an Airport Improvement Fee, which encourages airlines to increase capacity and provider lower fares through Abbotsford.

Airlines that currently serve YXX include WestJet, Swoop, and Flair Airlines. This past summer, YXX had non-stop routes to Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg, Toronto (Pearson), Hamilton, Kitchener, London (Ontario), Puerto Vallarta, and Los Cabos.

Vancouver International Airport (YVR) has also seen exceptionally strong passenger volumes this year to date. Over the first nine months of 2023, YVR recorded almost 19 million passengers — on par with the entire annual total for 2022. YVR is now on track to exceed its original projection of 22 million passengers in 2023.

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