A major American airline will no longer being flying to Kelowna year-round.
Alaska Airlines confirms that as of mid-April, it will no longer be flying to YLW through the spring, summer and fall. Instead, it will only provide service through Kelowna in the winter months.
“Canada has been slower to recover to pre-pandemic demand,” said an unnamed Alaska Airlines spokesperson by email.
“Our load factors during the peak summer season to Kelowna were significantly lower than the rest of our system. Flights to that region of B.C. remain very popular during the winter.”
As such, Alaska will stop flying to YLW in mid-April and resume service in mid-December.
Alaska currently offers a single flight between Seattle and Kelowna. The flight has been offered daily, but it will only be running five days a week now until service ends entirely in mid-April.
The news comes shortly after low-cost airline Lynx announced it’s cancelling its flights between Kelowna and Vancouver.
“From time to time, when we are looking at air service, airlines based on market demand will add in or drop off flights, so this really isn’t anything unusual at this point in time,” YLW airport director Sam Samaddar told Castanet Friday.
