Moncton Airport Sees Nearly 6,000 Passengers In July
MONCTON – The Greater Moncton Roméo LeBlanc International Airport saw a total of 5,814 passengers in July, a better than expected figure amid travel restrictions that are still in place for the region due to Covid-19.
The July numbers is a 91 percent drop from the year before. The same month in 2019, the airport saw 61,074 passengers.
But passenger traffic hit a low of 1,079 in May, representing a decrease of 98 percent from the previous year. So while the July increase is still small, it’s encouraging.
The travel industry is among those hit hardest by efforts to mitigate Covid-19. The Moncton airport and its airline partners and tenants have implemented safety measures including mandatory face masks in the terminal building, temperature screening for passengers and staff, social distancing, and enhanced cleaning and sanitation.
Still, it expects this year’s revenue to drop by 52 percent, or $10.6-million. The airport had to reduce its workforce, impacting 26 percent of its full-time staff, including management, non-unionized and unionized employees.
“The pandemic and its impacts on our industry have been devastating and remain a day to day challenge with recovery to 2019 passenger levels not anticipated until 2024,” said president and CEO Bernard LeBlanc in a release. “An unfortunate result is the need for us to restructure our workforce to better align it with the anticipated revenue stream and operational requirements. To facilitate this task, several of our employees opted to pursue retirement earlier than planned or voluntary layoff and we thank them for this selfless gesture.”
“With the current travel restrictions in place, it is difficult for our business to ramp up to prior passenger activity levels. Until the provincial and federal governments deem it is safe to travel again, it will be challenging to recover financially and be self-sustaining. This is why Canadian airports continue to seek federal government financial assistance to prevent long term impacts from both the operational and infrastructure perspectives,” he added.