Issue

The Medicine Hat Airport (YXH) has a single air service provider for passenger flight departures from and arrivals to Medicine Hat. The current standards and practices are imposing barriers to increase load capacity for flights from the Medicine Hat catchment area. The concerns include: 

1. Airfare Premiums 
2. Wait Times for Connecting Flights 
3. Flight Frequency 
4. Flight Consistency and Flight Reliability 
5. Destination Options

Background

In 2019, the Medicine Hat airport realized success resulting from an additional air carrier, increased flights, load capacity, and reduced fares. Since that time there has been a decline in service with only one air carrier and the airport now only serving 35% of its peak traffic in 2019. Challenges related to flight consistency and reliability, long connection times and reduced flight frequency have resulted in leakage to the YYC airport. From a 2023 survey of both business and leisure travellers, 55% of business survey respondents stated that they are flying on competitor airlines with 85% of the business survey respondents stating that they are using the YYC airport as an alternate airport because of better schedules and fares. With the catchment area of Southeast Alberta and Southwest Saskatchewan, there is a potential travel demand of 152,000 passengers. However with the current load capacity, there is a 75-80% loss of passenger traffic. While businesses have indicated that they would choose to fly out of Medicine Hat, if the fares were more reasonable and schedules would accommodate same daytime business travel, we continue to face obstacles related to a more conducive model for air service. The Southeast Alberta Chamber of Commerce recommends that the City of Medicine Hat aggressively pursue options for more flight frequency, greater consistency and reliability, better connection times and another competitive service for travelers in Southeast Alberta and Southwest Saskatchewan catchment area.

Most passengers would prefer to fly from Medicine Hat if the flight was available with reasonable fares and departure/connection times. Individuals would be willing to fly from Medicine Hat to avoid parking in larger centres and having to drive a greater distance, however people value their time and if there are long layovers as a result of poor connections or flights that aren’t ideal travel times, the proximity of the Regina and Calgary Airports no longer is a deterrent to find more cost effective, reliability and convenient options. With the current air carrier switching to a larger aircraft and moving the service away from a contract model, the goal of greater comfort and reliability should be attained, but there are still constraints as a result of flight times, connections and fares.

Recommendations

The Southeast Alberta Chamber of Commerce recommends:

1. The City of Medicine Hat aggressively pursue options for increased flight frequency, improved connectivity and service reliability along with more cost-competitive fares to increase the load capacity and retain our air service in the Southeast Alberta and Southwest Saskatchewan catchment area. 

2. The Government of Alberta create a funding pool to provide support to regional air carriers if passenger load factor or revenues do not meet a minimum target, in order to stabilize regional air service and connectivity.

Date Approved: October 17, 2012
Date Completed: February 2019
Reviewed/Revised: October 2024