This article was up to date on Thursday, February 19, 2026, to incorporate new knowledge on the subject, as reported by Newsweek and Forbes. It was initially revealed on Tuesday, February 17, 2026.
Canada’s airways are sending a transparent sign to the United States with their schedules. When it involves the place their plane are flying, Mexico is getting extra routes, extra seats, and extra frequencies, whereas the US transborder market is being trimmed, suspended, or, in a single case, completely deserted. This isn’t only a seasonal tweak for snowbirds. It’s a capability reallocation that traces up with shifting demand, shifting economics, and, sure, shifting politics.
The transition started a yr in the past when the Trump administration imposed tariffs on Canada, prompting Canadians to significantly cut trips to the US. However, as ties between the 2 nations have remained frayed, the Canadian carriers are performing a outstanding shift of capability away from the US and in the direction of Mexico. This was additional bolstered right this moment because the nation’s flag provider introduced further capability to Mexico amid a drop in US flights, stating the adjustments are supporting “Canada’s trade diversification.”
Air Canada’s Mexico Moves Aren’t Subtle
Air Canada didn’t bury the lede with this morning’s announcement. It is including 18% extra seat capability to Mexico this summer time versus final summer time, calling the transfer a strategic enlargement and explicitly tying it to Canada–Mexico ties and commerce diversification. The headline is a brand new route from Montréal–Trudeau International Airport to Guadalajara International Airport, positioned as a year-round nonstop flight.
That schedule issues: year-round service is the distinction between a one-season toe-dip and a route the airline expects to promote in a number of demand cycles. However, the enlargement isn’t solely about launching Guadalajara. Indeed, as detailed under, Air Canada can also be including frequencies on current Mexico routes, the form of quiet capability development that may add up quick as a result of it’s simpler to execute and simpler to promote.
Air Canada’s Capacity Increases To Mexico | |
|---|---|
Route | Weekly Increase |
Montréal–Cancún | Four further flights, growing to 11 weekly |
Toronto–Monterrey | One further flight, growing to 4 weekly |
Vancouver–Mexico City | Four further flights, growing to 11 weekly |
Vancouver–Puerto Vallarta | One further flight, growing to twice-weekly |
Air Canada quantified the size of its Mexico enlargement by saying it is “an 18% year-over-year boost.” But then there’s the framing. The launch additionally included quotes from the Canadian government and enterprise leaders, explicitly linking direct air connections to commerce diversification and Canada–Mexico financial ties. Dominic LeBlanc, the minister answerable for Canada-US Trade, Intergovernmental Affairs, and One Canadian Economy, had the next to say:
“As Canada leads one of the most important Team Canada Trade Missions in Canadian history, we are focused on helping Canadian businesses reach new markets and create new partnerships. Announcements like this by Air Canada will further strengthen Canada-Mexico ties and enable our two countries to do even more business together.”
Meanwhile, Candace Laing, the president of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, stated that “Canadian companies are looking to diversify trade and build new partnerships, so these direct connections with strong trade partners matter.” In other words, Air Canada and its partners in the Canadian government are sending a message. Together, they are very clearly positioning Mexico as a strategic corridor for commercial connectivity and diversification, and inevitably, this is at the expense of the US.
Mexico Is Getting Much Bigger For All Canadian Carriers
Air Canada’s announcement suits a wider sample: Canadian carriers are more and more treating Mexico as a development market on the expense of the US. Looking at knowledge from Cirium, an aviation analytics firm, for the primary half of 2026, whereas Canada–US scheduled capability has fallen sharply year-over-year, capability to Mexico has elevated by a staggering 46%.
It’s not a single-airline story both. It’s a system-wide sign that plane are being redeployed to the place bookings and yields look higher. The largest mover is WestJet, which solely lately cut 11 US routes from its schedule. To stability out the ledger, it has added greater than 4,500 new flights to Mexico in H1 2026, a rise of 59% over the identical interval final yr. This contains new routes from its base at Calgary International Airport to Guadalajara, Riviera Nayarit, Cozumel, Puerto Escondido, and Mazatlán.
Increase In Canada-Mexico Flights By Canadian Airlines (H1 2026) | |||
|---|---|---|---|
Carrier | H1 2025 Flights | H1 2026 Flights | % Change |
Air Canada | 5,378 | 6,330 | 18% |
WestJet | 7,798 | 12,376 | 59% |
Air Transat | 2,208 | 2,450 | 11% |
Porter Airlines | – | 1,268 | – |
Total | 15,384 | 22,424 | 46% |
Air Canada and Air Transat, whereas not shifting fairly as sharply as WestJet, are additionally experiencing double-digit development to Mexico this yr. Porter Airlines, which solely began flying to Mexico lately utilizing its Embraer 195-E2 fleet, can also be including to the combination, taking the whole to greater than 7,000 further Canada-Mexico flights by Canadian carriers in H1 2026.
What ties these collectively is the ‘form’ of the expansion, as it isn’t solely about including shiny new routes. A lot of the Mexico enlargement is going on by way of frequency additions on already-proven corridors, plus choose new metropolis pairs that broaden choices past the normal resort map.
WestJet Cuts 11 US Routes In Major Network Shake-Up [Full List]
Find out all of the routes that not exist, together with some that will not now have flights on any provider.
More Mexico Means Less US, And The Cuts Are Real
The different half of this story is what’s being left behind. The US transborder market has been taking real schedule hits for over a year now, and the primary half of this yr isn’t any totally different, with additional reductions on the way in which. The knowledge reveals one other 6% lower in site visitors to US locations by Canadian carriers in comparison with the identical time final yr, basically eradicating over 6,000 flights from the schedule. However, we must always pause for a second.
This knowledge is troubling for the US, the place lots of of hundreds of jobs hinge on tens of billions of {dollars} in spending by inbound Canadian guests. However, the information itself may be too rosy. If you scale back the aperture down to simply Q1 2026, the lower in US-bound flights by Canadian airways has truly been even greater at 9%. There continues to be loads of time for the Canadian carriers to make additional cuts to Q2 schedules, and a 9% lower throughout the total first half of the yr would take away an extra 3,000 flights.
Decrease In Canada-US Flights By Canadian Airlines (H1 2026) | |||
|---|---|---|---|
Carrier | H1 2025 Flights | H1 2026 Flights | % Change |
Air Canada | 65,820 | 64,454 | -2% |
WestJet | 19,338 | 15,878 | -18% |
Air Transat | 1,196 | 682 | -43% |
Porter Airlines | 13,262 | 12,546 | -5% |
Total | 99,616 | 93,560 | -6% |
Once once more, WestJet is the main mover, eradicating almost 3,500 US-bound flights from its schedule. However, Air Transat is the most important alarm bell, because it has chosen to axe all US flights from May. Even Air Canada, which traditionally holds the lion’s share of enterprise journey amongst the Canadian carriers, is quietly eradicating greater than a thousand US-bound flights.
Of course, this doesn’t imply Canada–US flying disappears. It’s nonetheless an enormous aviation market, and main enterprise routes and hub hyperlinks will stay sticky. But when you’re on the lookout for the clearest indicators within the schedules, it’s this: Canada’s carriers are placing extra steel the place Canadians are most desperate to spend their trip days, and that’s more and more south of the border, simply not the one the US is used to.
New Data To Support These Findings
Data exhibiting Canadian carriers shifting capability from US to Mexican routes was additional supported by reporting from Newsweek on February 19, by which it states that Mexico is reaping the rewards as Canadian tourists abandon US trips. More particularly, it cites the newest knowledge from Canada’s nationwide statistical company, which reveals that return journeys to the US in January dropped by 24% in comparison with a yr prior.
Meanwhile, knowledge from Mexico’s civil aviation company and Anáhuac University’s Center for Advanced Research point out that journeys to the nation have moved into this house. For the primary time, the Cancún-Toronto hall ranked because the busiest worldwide flight into Mexico, with journey from Toronto to the Mexican Caribbean surging 26% year-over-year. Chris Lynes, managing director of Flight Center Travel Group, had the next to say:
“Over the past year, we’ve seen a redistribution of Canadian travel spending. While US travel has softened considerably, outbound travel to other destinations like Mexico and interest in domestic trips has strengthened. If sustained, this could permanently reshape where Canadian travel dollars flow.”
Newsweek additionally cites a recent YouGov poll published by Forbes that discovered that 62% of Canadians say they’re much less inclined to go to the US than in earlier years, with the present “political or cultural climate” (57%) cited as the important thing issue influencing their resolution.
