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THUNDER BAY — There's a silver lining to WestJet's new business strategy which saw it abandon service between Thunder Bay and Toronto as of the end of April.
Thunder Bay Airport president and CEO Ed Schmidtke says the airline's new focus on Western Canada destinations is leading to a significant improvement in connectivity for local travellers.
WestJet now flies twice daily between Thunder Bay and Winnipeg, and Schmidtke says these flights are timed well for connecting flights from the Manitoba capital to Western Canada and the U.S.
"WestJet's new schedules provide Thunder Bay travellers with strong options to the west and south," Schmidtke said. "We appreciate the efforts of WestJet and the Winnipeg Airport Authority to time these flights to include great connectivity for Thunder Bay."
The airline offers up to 14 daily departures to Western Canada from Winnipeg, and service three times a week to Los Angeles with code share partner Delta.
Options will improve further in September when WestJet starts flying five times a week to Atlanta, where one of the world's busiest airports has over 1,000 daily departures to 210 destinations around the world.
"WestJet made it very clear in May of 2022 that they were going to consolidate their efforts in Western Canada. Once they started down that path, we made the point that we are very much the eastern edge of Western Canada ... Winnipeg has a lot more flights than it had beforehand. It makes getting to Western Canada through Winnipeg much easier than it's ever been," Schmidtke said in an interview Monday.
"As WestJet continues to adjust their routes with a Western Canadian base, we're seeing new and interesting developments that are helping Thunder Bay with connectivity, such as L.A. and Atlanta."
Winnipeg Airports Authority president and CEO Nick Hays said in a statement that Winnipeg offers Thunder Bay travellers "a seamless and convenient transfer through Winnipeg Richardson International Airport en route to a world of possibilities. We look forward to welcoming more of our neighbours from Northern Ontario as they include us in their travels."
"We haven't seen this type of connectivity to Western Canada over Winnipeg in 25 or 30 years," Schmidtke said. "We're hopeful that by making it easier, there is going to be a boost in [passenger] volume."
Through the end of April, year-to-date passenger volume through Thunder Bay had increased almost 65 per cent from a year ago, reaching 81 per cent of the pre-pandemic year of 2019.
"We're hoping that trend will continue, and even improve over the summer. Of course, last summer the primary runway was closed for construction, which made us unavailable to jets. So we lost all the growth through Flair as a result. We're hoping that this year, with normal operations restored, we're going to do even better than 81 per cent," Schmidtke said.
The final piece of the improvements on the airfield that started last year is just wrapping up on the secondary runway, and is expected to be completed this week.
