Windsor International Airport reported a slight increase in overall activity in 2023.
According to Statistics Canada, there were 47,041 total movements at the airport, up three per cent over the 45,621 movements recorded in 2022.
The figure represents all civil and commercial flights.
Mark Galvin, Chief Executive Officer of Windsor International Airport, says their general aviation community and flight schools are full, there's a lot of movements related to that section.
"Even if you look back to 2019, the pre-COVID era movements were around 43,000 to 45,000, so this is above that," he says. "Three per cent for 2023, it does show that trend line that people are flying, that our general aviation community is flying. I know our flight schools are robust."
Galvin says their commercial side is also getting there, but points out that the aviation industry and regional airports are still working to recover from the restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic.
"There's still some pilot shortages and and some aircraft shortages that we're dealing with," he says. "I think it's going to take 12 to 18 months to shake out to get back into some semblance of normalcy. There's still highs and lows, the air segment essentially stopped for a long time. During that restart it was like taking two step forward and one step backward."
Galvin is looking to the horizon and is happy with the figures.
He says there is a buzz about the growth happening in this community which he tries to highlight in conversations across the country.
"We try to leverage that to say that we want to position YQG to be able to handle that leverage. Commercial growth, cargo growth, general aviation growth. Try to be in a position to give our patrons what they want," he says,
Galvin would love the recovery to happen faster, however, he knows there's an element of patience that's needed.
Currently, Air Canada, Flair Airlines, Porter and Sunwing offer flights in an out of the airport.