Slight traffic increase in July amid the pandemic for the Greater Moncton Roméo LeBlanc International Airport

GREATER MONCTON, NB – Despite the strict travel restrictions still in place for our region, July was a slightly better month than expected with a total of 5,814 passengers as compared to a typical July with 61,074 in 2019, representing a 91% decrease year over year. Passenger traffic hit a low of 1,079 in May, representing a drop of 98%. Albeit minimal, this growth in July is encouraging.

The Greater Moncton Roméo LeBlanc International Airport and airline partners and tenants have implemented precautionary measures to support safe air travel which includes mandatory face masks in the airport terminal building, temperature screening for passengers and employees, respecting social distancing, and enhanced cleaning and sanitation to name a few.

As a result of the pandemic, revenue in 2020 is expected to drop by $10.6M, or 52%. As we position ourselves for a lengthy recovery period, there were difficult decisions made to allow us to better align our base expenses, a number of which are fixed, with our projected revenue base. Workforce reductions impacted a total of 26% of our full-time employees including management, non-unionized and unionized personnel.

“The pandemic and its impacts on our industry have been devastating and remains a day to day challenge with recovery to 2019 passenger levels not anticipated until 2024. An unfortunate result being the need for us to restructure our workforce to better align it with the anticipated revenue stream and operational requirements. To facilitate this task, several of our employees opted to pursue retirement earlier than planned or voluntary layoff and we thank them for this selfless gesture.”, stated Bernard LeBlanc, GMIAA President and CEO.

“With the current travel restrictions in place, it is difficult for our business to ramp up to prior passenger activity levels. Until the provincial and federal governments deem it is safe to travel again, it will be challenging to recover financially and be self sustaining. This is why Canadian airports continue to seek federal government financial assistance to prevent long term impacts from both the operational and infrastructure perspectives.”, added Bernard LeBlanc.

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About Greater Moncton Roméo LeBlanc International Airport (YQM)

YQM is a progressive airport and the leading airport in the central Maritimes. 24/7/365 – everyone associated with the airport strives to provide superior air service to passengers travelling all over the world and to the global cargo industry -safe, convenient, efficient, bilingual and businesslike.

YQM also strives to maximize its contribution to local and regional economic and community development – it currently drives over $665 million of economic activity annually, making it one of the top private-sector economic contributors to New Brunswick’s economy.

Your economy. Your airport.

For more information:
Julie Pondant, Corporate Communications Specialist
506-856-5459 or 506-962-2830
jpondant@cyqm.ca