Smaller airports across the country are struggling to rebound following the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to the Canadian Airports Council, the 30 biggest airports in Canada have seen passenger capacity return to 98 per cent of 2019 levels on average, while air travel to smaller communities and even medium-sized cities has withered, pushing up fares and leaving parts of the country less connected.
Speaking on AM800's The Morning Drive, Mark Galvin, CEO of Windsor International Airport says Windsor is one of the airports affected, adding it will take a long time to recover.
"It's a big topic of conversation amongst the airport CEO's and our Canadian Airports Council on ways to get back to have that air connectivity, which we need in Canada. We have the second largest country in the world and people want to fly and they want to go those places and if they don't have that opportunity it's very difficult."
Currently Windsor International offers flights from four carriers including Air Canada, WestJet, Porter and Sunwing.
Flair previously offered a Windsor-Orlando route.
Galvin says the demand is there for flights out of Windsor, however he says airlines don't have the resources.
"I was on a call with Flair just a couple weeks ago, it's not that they don't want to come back, but they don't have they the availability of aircraft to do so. So I think Flair coming back to Windsor is not a question of if, it's a question of when."
He says Canadians have become accustomed to thinking of flying as a last resort, something he would like to see changed as he believes that more people flying would help lower costs.
"Right now there's challenges for sure. We have great airlines at Windsor airport and they're great partners. There's pilot shortages, there's aircraft shortages but these are challenges that I think we all have to work together to facilitate that connectivity and connectivity matters to Canadian's and it's something that everybody wants."
Galvin says WestJet cut back service to Calgary to three departures a week instead of five a week last year.
-With files from The Canadian Press
