Passenger traffic at Halifax airport again down 75% from pre-pandemic
BNN Bloomberg
For the second year in a row, passenger traffic at Halifax Stanfield International Airport in 2021 was down 75 per cent from pre-pandemic levels.
HALIFAX -- For the second year in a row, passenger traffic at Halifax Stanfield International Airport in 2021 was down 75 per cent from pre-pandemic levels.
As a result, Atlantic Canada's busiest airport continued to record significant financial losses, despite a spike in business last summer when COVID-19 infection rates dropped, vaccination rates rose and travel restrictions were temporarily lifted.
More passengers were served during the month of August than January to July combined.
The Halifax International Airport Authority says that by the end of 2021, with the Omicron variant causing a huge increase in COVID-19 infections, the airport once again returned to 30 per cent of pre-pandemic levels.
In all, 1.1 million passengers travelled through the airport last year, compared with the 4.2 million passengers welcomed in 2019 before the pandemic hit.
Official financial results for 2021 have yet to be released, but the airport authority's financial loss is expected to be a marginal improvement from the $40 million loss reported in 2020, when there were just under 1 million passengers.