Westjet aircraft are pictured at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport on May 26, 2016.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
Canadians are taking to the skies in record numbers.
WestJet Airlines Ltd. reported record load factors in June and the second quarter, with the growth in revenue passenger miles exceeding the increase in capacity put in place by Canada's second-largest carrier.
The airline carried a record 5.9 million passengers in the second quarter, an 11.5-per-cent rise from the previous year that generated an increase in revenue passenger miles of 8.9 per cent. Available seat miles grew by 6 per cent. Those numbers pushed the load factor to 82.8 per cent in the quarter.
The WestJet numbers, which were released one week after Air Canada said it carried a record number of passengers in a single day on June 29, point to strong quarterly results for both airlines as the low Canadian dollar attracts more international travellers and celebrations of Canada's 150th birthday help generate increased domestic travel.
"The third quarter will be really good; [the] second quarter is also shaping up to be good," Chris Murray, who follows the two companies for AltaCorp Capital Inc., said Wednesday.
"You've got a lot of different drivers playing into it," Mr. Murray said. "First of all, Canada 150 and Canadian-bound traffic – some of the tourist indicators we've seen have been showing very healthy numbers."
Things are so busy for Joe O'Brien, who owns O'Brien's Whale & Bird Tours in Bay Bulls, Nfld., that the tour operator added an 85-passenger vessel to his fleet Wednesday to complement the 100-passenger and 12-passenger boats he was already running.
A heavy iceberg season that generated a lot of attention on social media has led to increased tourism from the United States and Europe, Mr. O'Brien said.
The icebergs are gone, but "the bay is full of whales," he said. "On my first trip this morning at 9:30, I saw over a dozen humpback whales."
Official tourism statistics for the second quarter and summer won't be available for some time, but Statistics Canada data from January through April show healthy travel numbers.
Trips by overseas residents grew 18 per cent in that period from a year earlier.
That follows strong results in 2016 for domestic travel as well as visits by Americans and overseas tourists, said Klaus Edenhoffer, a Conference Board of Canada economist.
"We see domestic travel as strong because of the dollar mainly," Mr. Edenhoffer said, adding that, despite its recent rise, the currency is still well below par with its U.S. counterpart.
"The dollar is a disincentive for Canadians to travel abroad and we've seen this happening over the last year," he said.
Mr. Edenhoffer also said a survey of Canadians' travel intentions shows there is another factor that may be playing a small role--Donald Trump.
"We see some effect--we don't want to overstate--there are some Canadians that are less likely to travel to the U.S. because of Donald Trump."
He also pointed out that a 40-per-cent increase in visitors from Mexico in the first four months of the year compared with the same period in 2016 was because travellers from that country no longer need visas to enter Canada.
Mr. Murray said one factor in the healthy airline data is the improving economy in Western Canada. The economy likely hit bottom toward the end of last year and is bouncing back, he said.
The Bank of Canada monetary policy report released Tuesday showed strong numbers for economic growth, he said.
"One of the things we know is that the demand for travel certainly follows the rate of growth of GDP," he said.