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CITY: Edmonton airport continues to boom, reports 38% capacity growth with 10 US cities
        (AlbertaIndex, August 6, Wednesday) --- Against a backdrop of bearish news about the state of the world economy, Edmonton International Airport (EIA) is booming.
        While US airports are fearful of traffic declines, Alberta’s capital is adding flights and has just reported a 38.3% surge in its US capacity.

EIA currently serves 41 flights to and from the 10 US destinations and that number will climb to 48 per week from November. The new flights will lift EIA’s US capacity by 38.3 per cent compared to November 2007, a significant achievement against the backdrop of high fuel prices and capacity decreases in US routes and some Canada-US routes in other Canadian cities.

Last week, WestJet added to the momentum when it announced 19 new flights per week, including new non-stop flights, and capacity increases to Cancun, Puerto Vallarta, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Mazatlan, Phoenix, Palm Springs and Cabo San Lucas.

Air Canada has largely maintained its seat capacity at EIA as it manages its way through major fuel cost increases. Air Canada added significant new destinations and flights at EIA in 2006 and 2007.

Air Canada’s London-Heathrow continues as a daily non-stop from EIA and is performing strongly. Mexicana’s three-times weekly non-stop service to Mexico City, launched in early June, is also developing a strong base of passengers, especially on the Mexico and Central America inbound service to EIA because of a growing number of Mexican workers migrating to Alberta.

“Overall, our passenger numbers to the end of June have increased by seven per cent over the same time period in 2007, which was a record-breaking year for us,” says Peter McCart, EIA vice-president for marketing.

“This strong growth is underpinned by remarkable 14 per cent passenger growth in the US market, indicating Edmonton’s and Northwestern Canada’s economies remain strong in an overall softening North American economy.”


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