New Brunswick airports report strong 2024 numbers

Both the Greater Moncton Romeo LeBlanc International Airport and Fredericton International Airport in New Brunswick are reporting strong numbers for 2024, with an expected busy December still to come.

“To the end of October, we’re just over 578,000 passengers,” said Courtney Burns, president and CEO of the Moncton Airport.

She says the airport is seeing a higher than expected recovery when looking at the trends since the COVID-19 pandemic.

“To the end of October, for example, we’re actually from a year-to-date perspective fully recovered from COVID impacts,” said Burns. “[In] 2020/2021, down about 75 per cent compared to pre-COVID, and then we’ve been building our way back really strong. So 2022 we were 70 per cent of pre-COVID and then last year for the full year, 2023, we were at 89 per cent, so this is far exceeding our expectations.”

Burns says the airport implemented a number of changes in the last 12-to-18 months, including direct flights to Alberta with WestJet, direct flights to Calgary and even Edmonton during the peak summer months.

She says in 2025 the airport will see 12 direct flights to sunny destinations.

“Two of those start in December with AirTransat, which is exciting, so Dec. 19/20, and then the balance of that program kicks off early February and runs until early May,” she said. “A lot of airports, we’re starting to see, are losing some of their flights, so for us to retain the same schedule we had last year, we’re quite excited about that.”

The Fredericton International Airport is also reporting a strong 2024.

“For this year we’ll probably finish around 380,000 passengers, which is a 15 per cent increase over last year,” said president and CEO Johanne Gallant.

She says Fredericton has seen a number of changes recently, including direct flights to Calgary twice a week, larger aircrafts with Air Canada, a third rotation per day with Porter Airlines and four sunny destination flights with Sunwing.

“The trend is different,” said Gallant. “We have a lot of leisure travel. People really want to get to the destination they didn’t get to go for the two-year period. It’s a strong demand right now.”

She says November, which is also typically a slower month for airports, has seen strong traffic.

Both airports say December is one of their busiest months with leisure travel picking up for the holidays, and both are expecting a strong 2025.

Burns says travellers can likely expect the same roster of destinations next year.

“We’ve got lots of proposals in front of our airline partners for new routes and opportunities, but as I mentioned, they’re still recovering themselves so I don’t think you can anticipate any large, new destination announcements in 2025, but we’re working hard to get some of those for 2026,” she said.

Gallant says they’re adding additional capacity.

“WestJet’s going to extend the season next summer,” she said. “In other words, it’ll start in May and finish in October with higher frequency during July and August, so that’s good for us. Porter Airline told us they’re back with their third rotation. Air Canada told us five flights a day to the main hubs.”

Gallant noted the flight college signed a contract with St. Thomas University to train domestic pilots and potentially address the shortage. 

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