Passenger

After being hit hard by the pandemic, the air passenger industry is still below the pre-pandemic levels. In 2021, the air sector served:

• 24 million passengers on domestic services (13.8% more than in 2020)
• 4 million passengers on services between Canada and the U.S. (38.2% less than in 2020), and
• 6 million passengers on other international services (37.8% less than in 2020)

Around 88.1% (37.3 million) of all air passenger traffic was handled at Canada’s Top 20 airports:

• Toronto Pearson International served 11.1 million passengers (11.7% annual decline), representing 26.2% of national air passenger traffic
• Vancouver International served 6.3 million passengers (10.5% annual decline), representing 14.6% of national air passenger traffic
• Montréal-Trudeau International served 4.3 million passengers (8.7% annual decline), representing 10.1% of national air passenger traffic

During the onset of the pandemic, there were a number of COVID-19 outbreaks on cruise ships around the world. This ultimately led to a Canada-wide cruise ship ban. AS a result, there was no cruise ship traffic at Canada’s major ports over 2021. The ban on cruise ships entering Canadian ports has been extended to February 28, 2022.

In 2021, BC Ferries moved 14.2 million passengers and 6.7 million vehicles, up by 26% and 34% respectively. Ferry ridership recovery is well underway, with the last quarter of 2021 witnessing only 2% fewer vehicles and 14% fewer passengers than the same quarter in 2019.

Pandemic restrictions continued to cut into ridership at VIA Rail, which carried only 1.5 million passengers in 2021. With the rollout of vaccines and some restrictions lifted, passenger counts increased drastically during the second half of 2021, representing 80% of the 1.5 million total for 2021. Although up 32% over 2020, ridership was only 30% of the pre-pandemic level of 5 million in 2019. The Québec City - Windsor corridor was the busiest segment of VIA Rail’s network, handling 96% of total passengers in 2021.

Unlike commercial vehicle movement which has increased, the number of 2-way passenger vehicle movements recorded at Canada-U.S. border crossings in 2021 was down 33% compared to 2020. In total, there were 8.6 million 2-way passenger vehicle movements recorded in 2021 with around 59% of movements attributed to Canadian registered vehicles.

During the first quarter of 2021, 2-way passenger movements were down 86% compared to first quarter of 2020 due to restrictions on non-essential travel which began in March 2020. The number of 2-way passenger movements in December 2021 more than doubled from December 2020 but is still significantly lower than pre-pandemic volumes. Limitations on non-essential travel are the primary reason for the decline and recovery for the year 2021.

The travel time index presented within the freight section is also a useful indicator of passenger travel performance. The index’s values display the changes in traffic and congestion on the urban road network, which is used by both freight and passenger vehicles.

Although transit ridership began to recover from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic throughout 2021, overall ridership remained 9.1% lower than 2020 at 772 million passengers. Note that 49% of 2020’s ridership came within the first quarter of the year, before the onset of the pandemic.

Ridership levels are recovering from the record low witnessed in April of 2020, when transit agencies carried only 26 million passengers, 16% of the total carried in 2019. As the year progressed and vaccination rates increased and restrictions began to ease, transit ridership rose, with November 2021 being the first month where ridership levels passed 50% of their pre-pandemic totals.

Overall, transit was on a steady path to recovery in 2021, with ridership as a percentage of the pre-pandemic 2019 levels increasing steadily from 27.1% in January to 56.1% in December. Despite this progress, there were 1.1 billion fewer riders in 2021 than in 2019, with agencies in Quebec and Ontario accounting for more than two-thirds (70.7%) of this drop.