Despite U.S. tariffs, aircraft delivery delays, and seat constraints, it was a successful year at the Saskatoon Airport.

Vice President of Business Development and Service Quality CJ Duchinski says relations between the U.S. and Canada kept the Saskatoon Airport Authority on its toes in 2025. With fewer Canadians wanting to travel to the U.S., and vice versa, airlines such as WestJet have had to make some tough decisions.

“We used to have a flight to Orlando that was once a week. That flight has been suspended for the season. Other markets like Pheonix and Vegas have pulled back on some of the capacity that they’ve previously had in those markets, and that really is a direct result of lower demand into the U.S. overall across Canada.”

Although Canadians aren’t flying to the U.S., they are choosing different destination such as Mexico, Europe, and other parts of Canada. Duchinski says it was a successful year in terms of passenger demand.

“For the last six months of this year, we’ve been ahead of what we would have seen in 2019, so we’re certainly expecting to end the year very close to where we would have been in 2019, or hopefully even a little bit higher. We’re certainly back into pre-pandemic levels.”

However, aircraft retirements and delivery delays have resulted in seat constraints in the local market.

“We have seats in the market this winter period than we would have had last year. So, even though our passengers are doing quite well, there are really just less seats in the market, and that’s being driven by what’s available.”

She expects that will be the case for the next 1-2 years.

On the bright side, she concludes that 2025 saw progress on planned renovations for the airport’s arrivals hall, as well as the installation of a solar power plant.