Halifax Airport Bleeding Money As Passenger Traffic Stalls
HALIFAX—For the second year in a row, passenger traffic at the Halifax airport is in a tailspin.
The Halifax International Airport Authority (HIAA) revealed today that passenger traffic was down about 75 percent last year, compared to pre-pandemic levels.
In 2021, 1.1 million passengers travelled through Halifax Stanfield International Airport.
That’s only slightly better than the 995,000 that used the airport in 2020. But it’s peanuts compared to 2019, when the airport welcomed 4.2 million passengers.
With passengers avoiding the airport and airlines pulling flights, the Halifax Stanfield International Airport is bleeding money to the tune of about half a million dollars a week.
Tiffany Chase is a spokesperson for the HIAA. She says the recent Omicron wave of Covid-19 set the industry back just as things were beginning to look up.
Omicron Grounds Hope For Traffic Takeoff
Things had started looking up for the airline industry in the summer of 2021. Covid-19 appeared to be receding and people were gaining confidence with the idea of flying.
At one point, Chase says, the airport was back up to about 50 percent of its pre-pandemic traffic.
But when Omicron ushered in a new round of travel restrictions, traffic at the airport fell. Chase says it’s hardly recovered since.
“Right now, I can tell you, based on the daily numbers, that that we’re back down to about 25 to 30 percent [traffic],” she said.
Before the pandemic hit, the Halifax airport offered flights to 46 destinations around the world. At the height of the pandemic, in 2020, that shrank to just four domestic flights
Chase admits things are better now, but still not great. Today, the airport offers flights to 16 destinations—11 in Canada and 5 internationally.
“There has been an increase in the amount of service but, again, we’re seeing the demand fall off such that the airlines [are] talking about consolidating flights for the months of January and February… and that’s certainly affecting Halifax,” she says.
Earlier this month, for example, Westjet consolidated 20 percent of its scheduled flights in February, on top of major flight reductions it already undertook in January.
Chase says fewer passengers coming to the airport means the spinoff businesses that rely on airport traffic are also suffering.
Many of the airport’s restaurants and other small businesses remain closed. Right now, fewer than half of airport businesses are open: 17, compared to 38 before the pandemic.
The ones that are open face reduced hours and major staffing challenges due to fluctuating passenger demand.
Debt Will Impact Airport’s Future
Official financial results for 2021 are not yet available, but HIAA’s financial loss is expected to be only a marginal improvement from the $40-million it lost in 2020.
To stay aloft until it stops losing money, HIAA took on about $150-million of debt last year. Chase says operating losses in both 2020 and 2021 have already chewed up about half of that money.
The airport shouldn’t have to borrow any more but those millions in debt will have an impact in the years to come.
HIAA had to lay off a large chunk of its staff in 2020 and Chase says the debt means not all of them will get to come back once traffic increases.
It will also mean extra scrutiny, and probably delays, on some capital projects and expansion plans.
Airport CEO Joyce Carter has said it likely won’t be until 2025, or later, that things get back to something approaching “normal” at the airport.
RELATED: How The Halifax Airport Will Recover From Covid-19
When the pandemic hit, she recently told the audience at a business conference, the airport lost nearly 50 years of growth “almost overnight.”
“I really do believe there’s no ‘back to normal.’ We certainly will not be the same post-Covid that we were pre-Covid,” she said.
Trevor Nichols is the associate editor of Huddle, based in Halifax. Send him your feedback and story ideas: [email protected].