Air Canada has seen a 10% decline in Canada-U.S. air travel bookings over the next six months, according to an interview with the carrier’s CEO, Mike Rousseau in an interview with CNBC International, while business travel has remained flat.
However, the Rousseau didn’t seem overly concerned about the decline in air travel to the U.S. In the CNBC International interview, he said that Canada-U.S. traffic is only about 22% of Air Canada's overall business, so a 10% decline is “not a tremendously large impact.”
In the same interview, Rousseau said business traffic has actually remained relatively consistent, but that leisure traffic is the culprit behind the booking decline. Speculating on the causes of this decline, he said that the rhetoric and currency exchange rate between the two countries were possible reasons.
In response to this, Air Canada dropped five routes to Detroit; Minneapolis; Indianapolis; Nashville, Tennessee; and Tampa, Florida, saying that some routes were always meant to be seasonal, but also citing higher competition from U.S. rival Delta Air Lines and low demand.
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