Back-to-school traffic and a baseball tournament boosted the passenger numbers through the Thunder Bay airport.
The northwestern Ontario airport set an all-time passenger record for August with 81,003, up four per cent from the same period in 2016.
The Thunder Bay International Airports Authority attributed it to students attending Confederation College, Lakehead University, and the Under-18 World Baseball Championships.
“Although August is always a busy month, these numbers are unprecedented,” said Ed Schmidtke, the authority’s president-CEO in a statement.
“The international traffic generated by the baseball championships combined with growing international student populations at our two post-secondary institutions generated a lot of activity.”
Schmidtke encourages residents to book ahead if they are travelling over the Christmas holidays.
“We are already aware of large student volumes planning to fly home over that holiday season. With both Confederation College and Lakehead University reporting record numbers, we expect that there will be stronger demand than normal for air travel in December. To avoid disappointment on either the fare price or seat availability we would strongly suggest booking early.”
