Vancouver International Airport on track to reach 17 million passengers in 2022

Oct 28 2022, 11:33 pm

A total of over 17 million passengers are expected to be recorded at Vancouver International Airport (YVR) in 2022 — a staggering figure considering the trickle of passengers the airport previously experienced over much of the pandemic period.

Vancouver Airport Authority president and CEO Tamara Vrooman provided the outlook for YVR on Thursday during her first in-person address to the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade.

With 17 million passengers, YVR will return to annual traffic levels last experienced in 2011.

She adds that based on current forecasts, YVR could see 22 million passengers in 2023 — equivalent to 2016’s total. Next year’s volumes will be partially buoyed by a resurgence in tourism, including the forecast for an all-time record 1.4 million cruise ship passengers at Canada Place in downtown Vancouver — higher than the 1.1 million in 2022.

In contrast, YVR saw just 7.3 million passengers in 2020 and 7.1 million passengers in 2021 — down from the all-time record of 26.4 million passengers in 2019.

This year to date, YVR has seen a very strong recovery in passenger traffic from domestic flights (92% pre-pandemic) and US transborder (80% pre-pandemic), but international passenger traffic continues to lag in recovery at just 60%.

Vrooman explained international’s recovery is due to a very slow return in flights to YVR’s traditionally large international submarkets of Hong Kong and Mainland China. At its peak in 2018/2019, YVR had eight Chinese airlines with as many as 22 flights daily, many to secondary cities.

The short-term recovery of the Chinese market is also hampered by the ongoing strict health restrictions in Hong Kong and Mainland China.

“We expect China to be a part of our future and we are absolutely planning for that, but we do not expect it to be as dominant a part of our mix as we have seen previously,” she said.

“I just don’t see that returning for a variety of geopolitical and other reasons, but there’s a lot to be excited about and we see exceptional growth in the international markets, just coming from a more diverse set of sources.”

YVR has come a long way from the pandemic low of only 69,000 passengers in April 2020. Prior to the pandemic, this figure was the airport’s average total for an entire normal day.

With high vaccination rates, relaxed health and travel restrictions, and improved consumer confidence and pent-up travel demand, YVR’s average passenger traffic recovered to 25,000 daily passengers by January 2022, and further soared to an average of 67,000 daily passengers in August 2022 — representing a 168% increase over eight months.

Vrooman says this “overwhelmed” the airport, which had scaled back its workforce considerably earlier in the pandemic to reflect the depressed demand and slow down the financial bleed in operating and maintenance costs of the vast facility.

YVR and its business partners, including the Canadian Airport Transport Screening Authority, were unable to quickly scale up their operations to meet passenger demand recovery.

Airport efficiency and customer satisfaction have fallen particularly from the shortages in security screening staff, and airline employees, including flight attendants and pilots in some cases. But these issues are being experienced in airports globally, not just YVR.

“We knew that there would be some bumpy arts of building back, but certainly we’ve seen some significant stresses across the entire global aviation system,” said Vrooman, describing the ripple effect of delays as the result of the operations of airports and airlines.

“Aviation is an ecosystem, you know it is a supply chain of sorts, and every part is connected to the other. So what happens in one place absolutely affects the other.”

Vrooman adds that YVR staff did not waste any of their low time during the slowdown in global aviation, as they optimized the airport’s operations, implemented new systems, created an interactive digital twin model of the airport using a game engine, and improved the baggage system.

She says YVR now has a 99% outbound success rate for luggage leaving the airport — the success rate for luggage leaving on time, on the right plane, with the right passenger, and to the correct destination. According to her, other major airports in North America do not have such a high outbound luggage performance.

Vrooman also highlighted the full opening of the major Pier D international terminal building expansion this past summer, and its approved land use changes for Sea Island to allow for significantly added airport-supporting commercial and industrial businesses, such as logistics and warehouses.

About 400 vacant acres north of the north runway can now be developed for industrial uses, including land previously set aside for part of the footprint needed for a third runway extending out to the ocean, and about 800 acres of commercial uses south of the south runway within an area also previously contemplated for an additional runway.

vancouver international airport yvr 2021 land use amendments

2021 Sea Island land use changes. (Vancouver International Airport)

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