Airport Continues To See Record Low Passenger Volumes

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Sault Ste. Marie Airport

Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario – Passenger traffic April thru September 2020 totalled 8,652 passengers.  This represents a decrease of 92%.  The past six months of traffic levels are as follows:

Month Passengers Change from Previous Year
April 63 -99.6%
May 69 -99.6%
June 440 -97.5%
July 2,112 -88.8%
August 3,170 -84.8%
September 2,798 -83.4%

 

The Sault Ste Marie Airport Development Corporation is a private not for profit corporation that owns and operates the Sault Ste. Marie Airport.  The SSMADC must self-fund all operational and capital costs with user fees, leases, and customer pay items such as car park and AIF (Airport Improvement Fee).

Aircraft traffic levels have also been greatly reduced since the onset of the pandemic the latest available data covers through July 2020 and shows the following levels for the last three months:

Month Aircraft Movements Change from Previous Year
April 575 -91.0%
May 875 -89.6%
June 954 -87.7%
July 1,245 -81.0%

 

Bearskin Airlines is operating 2 flights Sunday and 4 daily flights Monday to Friday.  Air Canada Express is offering to up to two daily flights.  This continues to be a major decrease in flight options compared to October of 2019 when Air Canada was flying 4 daily flights, Porter had up to 3 daily flights, and Bearskin was flying up to 7 daily flights.

Terry Bos President and CEO of the SSMADC stated “As a result of the pandemic, revenue for fiscal year 2020/2021 is expected to drop over $2.0M operational revenue or 57% and $1.5M capital revenue or 74%.  With the recovery period being projected to be even longer then first feared a number of difficult decisions needed to be made to better align expenses, which a number of expenses are fixed, with the projected revenue.  Workforce reductions impacted total to date 45% of employees”