Porter Airlines will offer daily flights to Calgary, Edmonton, Halifax, and Vancouver. Photo Credit: Hamilton International Airport
Play Airlines, which has been offering flights to Europe out of Hamilton International Airport since 2023, recently announced that they will be ceasing their operations in the city.
However, that report was followed up by the news earlier this week that Porter Airlines will begin offering daily flights out of Hamilton to Calgary, Edmonton, Halifax, and Vancouver starting in June 2025.
Low-cost airline Swoop had been flying out of Hamilton to Abbotsford, Charlottetown, Deer Lake, Edmonton, Halifax, St. John’s and Winnipeg domestically in addition to several international locations before they shut down in fall 2023.
Similarly, Lynx Air, another low-cost airline, started flying out of Hamilton to Calgary, Halifax, and Vancouver in 2022 but shut down in February 2024.
After those changes, WestJet, which flies out of Hamilton, announced that they would be suspending their routes to Atlantic Canada as of July 1, 2024, and reducing their service to Orlando, Florida.
Since July 1, 2024, the only regular domestic route out of Hamilton Airport was WestJet’s flights to Calgary, Alberta which air passengers could use to connect to other destinations.
Passenger service at the airport then took another hit in January when Icelandic company Play Airlines, which had been offering flights from Hamilton to Europe through Iceland, announced that they will be ceasing operations out of Hamilton at the end of April 2025.
Despite being dubbed a low-cost airline, prices to Europe are similar to other airlines when factoring in baggage and seat selection.
An October 2024 press release from Play Airlines warned of cuts to service, noting that their earnings were “below expectations,” particularly their yields on flights across the Atlantic Ocean to North America.
The airline is instead placing a bigger emphasis on their markets in Southern Europe.
Finally, following all the negative news, an announcement was made on Feb. 4 that Porter Airlines will begin service out of Hamilton starting in June 2025.
Unlike some of the other airlines that had been offering service, Porter Airlines already has a strong base in Canada, having been founded in 2006.
The airline is headquartered out of Billy Bishop Airport on the Toronto Islands and is Canada’s third largest airline behind Air Canada and WestJet.
Alongside the announcement that Porter will be coming to the airport, Tradeport International Corporation, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Vantage Group which has managed Hamilton Airport operations since 1996, announced that they are also beginning “significant enhancement” of terminal facilities.
The enhancements are part of their $400 million investment commitment to “develop and expand” the airport which was made when they signed a 49-year lease extension with the City of Hamilton to continue managing the site in late 2024.
A press release states that airport enhancements will include updated exterior frontage, expanded canopies, a refresh of terminal interiors including check-in counters, screening areas, gates, and baggage claim, artistic elements, new digital signage, and lighting upgrades.
They say that future enhancements will also include passenger jet bridges to connect terminals directly to aircraft. Currently, air passengers have to walk directly on the tarmac to board planes in Hamilton.
Michael Deluce, the CEO of Porter Airlines, says, “The Porter experience is something that travellers in Hamilton have never seen before.”
“We see significant opportunity in this market to expand our network across North America and believe that the community can support these initial flights – which will position us to consider offering additional service from Hamilton,” he added.
Based in Hamilton, he reaches hundreds of thousands of people monthly on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. He has been published in The Hamilton Spectator, Stoney Creek News, and Bay Observer. He has also been a segment host with Cable 14 Hamilton. In 2017, he received the Chancellor Full Tuition Scholarship from the University of Ottawa (BA, 2022). He has also received the Governor General’s Academic Medal. He formerly worked in a non-partisan role on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.
