By Oli Herrera

TRAVEL NUMBERS

YXS sees steady increase of passengers as travel restrictions loosen

Nov 15, 2021 | 5:49 PM

PRINCE GEORGE—It’s been more than a week since the U.S. border reopened for Canadian travellers. With more than a dozen airports across Canada currenlty accepting international flights, Statistic Canada has reported 14 times the amount of incoming passengers last month compared to October 2020.

Stat Canada reported that 263,400 foreign travellers into Canada last month, compared to 18,300 in October 2020.

480,100 Canadian travellers returned home last month, compared to the 58,400 in October of 2020.

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However, Prince George is not included in that list of airports that can accept international flights, but the CEO says that there’s still lots of foot traffic coming in and out of the airport.

“I think once the announcement was made, people were scrambling to make their arrangements.” said Gordon Duke, CEO of the Prince George Airport Authority.

Pre-pandemic, YXS saw an average of 40,000 passengers a month. At the height of the pandemic it was at around 1,000.

Now those numbers are steadily rising.

“For the past three months we’ve been ranging between 23 and 27,000 a month so it’s encouraging for sure.” said Duke.

While there may not be direct international flights, Duke says YXS is being used as a pit stop for travellers to reach their warmer destinations.

“They’re connecting in the airline hubs in Calgary and Vancouver and getting to those snowbird destinations that they missed out on last year.” said Duke.

Because they can’t intake international flights just yet, the airport has made some changes to its operations. Including turning the space where passengers had to report to Customs and Immigration, into an onsite COVID testing facility.

“We felt it was the right thing to do. It gives travellers and the public the opportunity to get the rapid testing done pretty quickly and it’s starting to really pick up, it’s busy.” said Duke.

The testing facility says it’s planning on offering rapid PCR COVID test that can be used for travel to the U.S.