WestJet makes final flights out of YXH and YQL

Southern Alberta Newspapers Photo by Brendan Miller. FINAL FLIGHT: A WestJet Q400 series is seen on the runway at the Medicine Hat Regional Airport as it gets ready to embark on its last flight to Calgary after the air-service announced it would cease all flights to Medicine Hat and Lethbridge earlier this year. City staff and elected officials say they are scrambling to find an air passenger service replacement for the region that is now left with limited transportation options.

By Brendan Miller
Southern Alberta Newspapers

Just before 10 a.m. on June 24, WestJet’s Q400 aircraft taxied down the runway for its last flight from the Medicine Hat Regional Airport after the Calgary-based airline announced it was ceasing air passenger service to Medicine Hat and Lethbridge in February.

No replacement carriers have been found to replace air passenger service between Medicine Hat and Calgary, however city administration and elected officials have been scrambling to find one and say they have submitted 22 expressions of interest to other passenger airline providers.

But discontinuation of passenger air service in the region is already having an impact for travellers, including Kelowna resident Michelle Roy, who travels from B.C to Medicine Hat every couple of months to visit her aging mother.

Roy expressed concern about future difficulties and increased costs of travelling to Medicine Hat during her next visit this fall, noting alternative transportation options or long shuttles from Calgary.

“When I found out this was the last flight I’m like, ‘OK, going back now is going to be problematic.’

“There’s only one shuttle to Medicine Hat and the bus service is like five hours to Calgary,” said Roy, who also priced out renting a car.

“They were asking $1,200 for a rental for the week. It’s going to be difficult, but what can you do, right?”

The disruption will also affect international travel to the region.

Jude and Marjorie Jonas, who were visiting Alberta from London, U.K, said the disruptions impacted their travel plans and expressed frustration with their journey to Medicine Hat.

“Now we will have to drive down to the nearest airport, which is Calgary, just to find a way from Medicine Hat, and this will limit us coming here, because obviously there’s no flight and it’s a longer trip coming here,” said Jude.

The Medicine Hat Regional Airport contributes approximately $16 million annually to the city’s GDP and supports 135 jobs and like similar-sized airports across the country, Medicine Hat faces several fiscal challenges as well as the upcoming loss of an important revenue source following WestJet’s departure.

“Obviously with WestJet’s withdrawal, that will result in material loss in passenger volume and connectivity and revenue to our airport,” explained Logan Boyd, airport manager. “But what’s really happened here is symbolic of structural challenges in this space that we are seeing at a lot of other airports.”

Boyd says during times of economic uncertainty regional airports typically feel the brunt of the impact “disproportionately,” and take more time to recover than larger airports.

Medicine Hat Coun. Yusuf Mohammed said recent meetings with local MLAs Justin Wright and Danielle Smith, as well as exchanges with elected officials in Ottawa, are moving forward constructively, saying all sides recognize the service’s economic impact.

On June 22 officials in Medicine Hat held a press conference and confirmed news that the provincial government has issued a Request for Expression of Interest.

This is to collect information from regional air carriers and other aviation operators and provide a potential model for service, frequency of trips, aircraft models and other logistics.

Last year the regional airport experienced a 30 per cent year-over-year increase to 37,000 total air traffic movements, including private flights.

WestJet officially began service almost exactly eight years ago on June 22, 2018, and launched its Saab 340B aircraft between YYC and YXH.

In 2024, it introduced its larger Q400 aircraft to Medicine Hat to address passenger concerns about operational performance as well as departure time changes.

WestJet has called the discontinuation of service in southern Alberta a cost-saving measure.

On June 24, WestJet announced it ranked seventh globally and first in North America for its flight performance in May, according to the international Cirium On-Time Performance Report.

WestJet’s key operational metrics in May scored nearly 86 per cent of all flights on time out of an average operation of 560 flights per day.

This year WestJet is celebrating its 39th anniversary in service after first taking to the skies in 1996.