Nearly 4.9 million passengers passed through pre-board security screening at Canada’s eight largest airports in May, up 3.3% on the same month last year, according to Statistics Canada.
The increase was driven by domestic travel, with 2.5 million passengers screened for flights within Canada, a 6.4% rise. Seven of the eight largest airports reported growth, with only Edmonton International bucking the trend on a slight 0.3% decline.
Transborder travel to the United States continued its downward trend, with passenger numbers down 2.1% on May 2025. The drop marks the 16th consecutive month of year-over-year declines.
The agency said trade tensions between Canada and the United States have influenced a shift in air travel patterns since early 2025. Compared with May 2024, before those tensions emerged, screened passenger traffic in May 2026 was down 10.2%. Transborder passengers accounted for 22.4% of all screened travellers in May this year, down from 23.6% in 2025 and 26.2% in 2024.
Among the four largest airports, Montréal Trudeau posted a 1.7% increase in US-bound passengers, its first year-over-year gain after 16 consecutive months of declines. Toronto Pearson, Vancouver International and Calgary International all recorded drops.
International traffic outside the United States rose 2.6%, reversing a slight decline in April despite continued travel uncertainty linked to the conflict in Iran and higher jet fuel prices.
Why it matters for the trade
The numbers confirm that the structural reshaping of the Canadian market is now well established rather than a blip. With transborder demand into a 16th straight month of decline and US-bound passengers shrinking as a share of the total, agents and operators reliant on cross-border programmes need to plan for a smaller, softer US leisure market for the foreseeable future.
The growth is sitting elsewhere: domestic travel is up sharply, and long-haul international outside the US has turned positive again, which points to demand redirecting towards Europe, Asia and other long-haul leisure destinations rather than disappearing.
The Montréal Trudeau figure is the one early signal worth watching, as the first transborder gain in well over a year may hint at the US slide bottoming out at certain gateways even as the national picture stays negative. For inbound suppliers, the takeaway is that Canadian outbound capacity and appetite are intact; the question is simply where that traffic now goes.