Canadian airlines scale back U.S. flights in favour of Latin America this winter

The upcoming winter season sees robust seat growth in Latin America and the Caribbean as Canadian airlines pivot away from traditional U.S. sun routes, according to IATA scheduling data.

As first reported in Simple Flying, airlines, since early 2025, have experienced a cooling in leisure demand for U.S. destinations amid the weak Canadian loonie and geopolitical conflict with U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff policies.

All four of Canada’s largest carriers are part of a shift in the Northern Hemisphere.

Cirium figures show that Air Canada, WestJet, Porter Airlines, and Air Transat together plan to boost capacity to Latin America by roughly 36 per cent this winter while trimming more than 1,500 flights to the United States.

WestJet has been among the carriers making the steepest reductions to their U.S. networks in recent months.

READ MORE: AC's winter 2025-26 schedule adds four Latin American cities, 13 new routes, more capacity

As Simple Flying reported, the airline has been reshaping its schedule in response to softer demand, and those adjustments are extending into winter.

Compared with last winter, WestJet is operating roughly 13.3 per cent fewer flights — about 1,050 services — and 16.3 per cet fewer seats, or around 209,000.

Some routes have seen sharp declines: Edmonton–Las Vegas has shed more than a third of its capacity, while Edmonton–Atlanta is down by about 61 flights, leaving just 87 services this winter, with seat capacity trimmed to a little over 13,600.

Air Canada has also pared back its U.S. network this winter, discontinuing several secondary routes altogether.

Toronto–Jacksonville was removed from the schedule, while Montreal no longer links to Detroit or Minneapolis. Service between Toronto and Indianapolis, as well as Vancouver and Tampa, has likewise been withdrawn.

Across its remaining transborder routes, the airline has trimmed capacity by deploying smaller aircraft or reducing weekly frequencies.

Canadian airlines have shifted much of the capacity from U.S. routes toward Latin America and the Caribbean, data shows.

Collectively, the four major carriers will add over 4,000 flights to Latin America alone this winter, Simple Flying points out.

Air Canada, in May, unveiled its largest-ever seasonal schedule for the region, featuring 13 new routes and four entirely new destinations.

The airline is offering 16 per cent more seats than last winter, with more than 80,000 weekly seats across 55 daily departures.

Among the new services are flights to Santiago, Pointe-à-Pitre, Fort-de-France, Nassau, Montego Bay, and Huatulco, while Rio de Janeiro, Cartagena, Guatemala City, and Guadalajara join the network as brand-new destinations.

Air Canada is also positioning Latin America as a growth area for its sixth-freedom traffic, reporting a 12 per cent year-on-year increase in revenue from the region in Q1 2025.

Porter Airlines, notably, will launch its first services to Latin America and the Caribbean thjis winter, introducing flights from Toronto Pearson, Ottawa, and Hamilton to Cancun, Puerto Vallarta, Nassau, Grand Cayman, and Liberia.

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