1.1 million passengers to fly through Vancouver airport during spring break

US transborder terminal of Vancouver International Airport (YVR). (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

It is going to be another busy spring break at Vancouver International Airport (YVR) — even busier than the pre-pandemic 2019 spring break.

Vancouver Airport Authority is forecasting that 1.098 million passengers will travel through its facilities over the two weeks between March 18 and April 2, 2024, including 512,969 domestic passengers, 299,999 non-US international passengers, and 285,085 US transborder passengers.

In contrast, YVR saw about 881,000 passengers travel through the airport between March 10 and 24, 2023, for last year’s spring break.

This is also up from the 1.032 million in pre-pandemic 2019, with the gains coming from domestic and international volumes.

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YVR is expecting a total of over 9,100 flights throughout the 2024 spring break period.

The peak times by sector for check-in and security are 6 am to 1 pm and 8 pm to 10 pm for domestic, 5 am to 8 am and 10 am to noon for US transborder, and 10 am to 1 pm for international.

During this busier period, for a less stressful experience, the airport authority is advising travellers to follow the standard recommendation of arriving at the airport at least two hours ahead of domestic flights and at least three hours before US transborder/international flights.

Passengers departing on select flights can pre-book security up to 72 hours in advance with YVR Express. As well, a new digital tool called YVR TimeLine enables passengers to scan the QR code located throughout security screening lanes and enter their flight number, as a way for passengers to judge whether they are at risk of missing their flight.

Today, YVR is marking the launch of its inaugural Zipair low-cost service flying direct to Tokyo Narita International Airport (NRT). And then on April 3, another major service, Air Canada’s new direct service to Singapore Changi Airport (SIN), will also launch.

In 2023, YVR recorded a total of 24.94 million passengers, representing a 95% recovery of the all-time record of 26.38 million in 2019. The tally for 2023 was YVR’s third-best performing year ever for passenger volumes.

Early signs for 2024 point to another potential strong year: the latest available official statistics outlining January 2024’s performance shows YVR saw 1.974 million passengers, exceeding the 1.795 million of January 2023, with each market — domestic, US transborder, non-US international, Asia, and Europe — seeing year-over-year growth.

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