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Residents of the Queen City will have many opportunities to soak up the sun this winter by escaping the season altogether.
The Regina Airport Authority has announced direct flight to nine sun-soaked destinations: Phoenix, Las Vegas, Orlando, Cancun, Puerto Vallerta, Mazatlan, Puerto Plata, Punta Cana and Varadero.
In a news release, the airport said those flights will be operated by Sunwing and WestJet.
After a disastrous holiday season plagued with Sunwing cancellations and disruptions, Regina Airport Authority CEO James Bogusz said he’s confident Sunwing will be able to deliver this winter, since the airline is now owned and operated by WestJet.
“We’re expecting far better on-time performance and certainly seeing all these flights operate as scheduled,” he said. “With the WestJet acquisition of Sunwing, they’ve also added additional capacity themselves into very popular destination like Cancun and Puerto Vallerta.”
The airport is to peak at 17 weekly flights to those destinations during the height of winter.
Even though he expects YQR to have a successful winter season, Bogusz said he doesn’t expect the airport to reach pre-pandemic capacity levels this winter.
“Unless we start seeing things around the pilot shortage that we’re all hearing about that has been absolutely front and centre for a lot of airlines corrected, I don’t see that happening this year,” he added. “What I see (is us) being in the high 80s or low 90s (in percentages) when it comes to pre-pandemic airline capacity.”
However, he said he expects the airport to be close to 100 per cent capacity in 2024, adding the airport is going to be busy this winter.
“People should be arriving early, minimum 90 minutes before their flight,” Bogusz said. “We’re going to keep talking to other Canadian airlines as well. There’s new airlines (like Porter, Lynx Airlines and Canada Jetlines) in the market … We’re talking with all of them … to encourage them to come next year.”
When it comes to attracting a non-stop daily year-round U.S. flight to Regina, Bogusz said the airport is actively encouraging U.S. airlines to add Regina to their list of destinations.
“Work is ongoing. We’ve made some very aggressive attempts with both financial offers and incentives to hopefully have them come to the city,” he said. “But ultimately, the airport does not control where an airline flies.”
The most likely prospect would be United Airlines flying to a hub like Denver, with American Airlines flying to Chicago being another possibility, Bogusz shared.
“At the end of the day, they have a large network to serve in the United States and unfortunately, you just don’t see those airlines flying to many mid-sized cities in Canada as of yet,” he added.
