No major dip in U.S. route passengers at Vancouver airport in early 2025 | Daily Hive

No major dip in U.S. route passengers at Vancouver International Airport in early 2025

American Airlines plane at Vancouver International Airport (YVR). (oasisamuel/Shutterstock)

Although there are increasing reports of reduced Canada–U.S. border traffic — including fewer Canadian visitors supporting the businesses at American border communities — and a scaling back of commercial airline capacity between the two countries, the trade war sparked by President Donald Trump’s tariffs does not yet appear to have had a significant immediate impact on passenger volumes at Vancouver International Airport (YVR), according to the latest available statistics.

At least not yet.

Newly released official statistics today for YVR’s February 2025 performance show Canada’s second largest airport recorded a total of 1.91 million passengers over the course of the month, including 436,000 passengers from the U.S. transborder market.

You might also like:

This is only slightly down from the 448,000 U.S. route passengers recorded in January 2025, reflecting the typical month-over-month dip between January and February seen in previous years. For comparison, U.S. route passenger volumes were 468,000 in January 2024 and 464,000 in February 2024; 495,000 in January 2019 and 481,000 in February 2019; and 484,000 in January 2018 and 468,000 in February 2018.

For the other markets, in February 2025, YVR saw 908,000 domestic passengers, 336,000 Asia Pacific passengers, 85,000 Europe passengers, and 143,000 international miscellaneous passengers.

For the month of January 2025, the airport saw a total of 2.04 million passengers, including 958,000 domestic passengers, 389,000 Asia Pacific passengers, 96,000 Europe passengers, 152,000 international miscellaneous passengers, and the aforementioned U.S. passengers.

In fact, January 2025’s total passenger volumes set a new all-time record at YVR for the month of January, exceeding the pre-pandemic 2019 record of 2.03 million passengers, and the 2024 volume of 1.97 million.

While February 2025 represented a slight dip from YVR’s total of 1.92 million passengers in February 2024, it represents the airport’s second-best tally ever for the month of February.

Moreover, the combined total passenger volumes for the first two months of the year exceeds the volumes over the same period in 2024 by 1.5 per cent.

The performance for March 2025 could offer more insight into the potential impacts of Trump’s growing threats of tariffs and annexation, and the calls of a boycott of U.S. destinations by Canadian travellers. However, upon being inquired by Daily Hive Urbanized, the Vancouver Airport Authority stated that it is still in the process of collecting March data directly from the airlines and, as a result, does not yet have any preliminary figures to share. Official statistics are typically published about a month later to ensure accuracy, with full March data expected by early May.

Only a minimal erosion to passenger volumes can be expected at first, given that travellers typically book their flights many weeks or months in advance of their trip, and are unlikely to cancel their trips, especially if they have already sunk non-refundable costs for flights, hotels, and other experiences and services.

If the instability persists, overall passenger volumes in 2025 could break from the soaring trends seen in the past few years of post-pandemic recovery — not just in the U.S. market, but globally — as Trump has imposed tariffs not only on Canada, Mexico, and the United States, but on more than 180 countries and territories. This has sparked of fears of lower consumer spending and a global recession.

Additionally, the extremely weak Canadian loonie against the U.S. dollar is proving highly unfavourable for Canadian travellers, serving as yet another deterrent.

On Monday, during its annual shareholder meeting, Air Canada noted that the number of bookings to U.S. destinations over the next six months were “comparable” to the industry-wide drop of approximately 10 per cent. Air Canada and WestJet have instead reallocated some of their reduced capacity for non-American destinations.

Emerging out of the pandemic, the U.S. market was the strongest international market for YVR, with airlines meeting the heightened demand by boosting capacity and introducing routes that serve brand new destinations.

During the last recession, YVR’s passenger volumes fell from 17.85 million in 2008 to the recession trough of 16.18 million in 2009, and it did not fully recover to pre-recession volumes until 2013.

In 2024, YVR recorded a total of 26.2 million passengers, marking its second-highest year ever for such volumes. This was slightly behind the all-time record of 26.3 million passengers in 2019.

As for Vancouver’s cruise ship industry, Vancouver Fraser Port Authority forecasts a total of over 1.2 million cruise ship passengers at the Canada Place terminal in 2025. While this is a strong figure, it is slightly lower than the all-time record of 1.32 million in 2024.

You might also like: