Pacific Coastal Airlines’ regular flights between Canadian Rockies International Airport (YXC) and the Vancouver International Airport South Terminal (YVR) will come to an end next month.
Pacific Coastal staff said the last day for flights between the two cities will be April 28.
Those impacted by the cancellation will be contacted and offered a full refund.
“As our organization continues to emerge from the pandemic we are experiencing operational constraints due to the critical pilot and aircraft maintenance engineer shortage,” said Johnathan Richardson, Vice President of Customer and Commercial. “We are unable to offer our desired level of flight frequency and capacity and have made the difficult decision to suspend flights between Vancouver and Cranbrook, as well as reduce capacity in other markets in our network, to ensure that we can maintain offering a reliable and robust flight schedule for 2023.”
That said, Air Canada and WestJet will continue to operate flights out of the local airport.
“Although YXC will be losing two flights, totaling 38 seats daily to and from YVR, we remain a direct link to the rest of the world via Vancouver International Airport and Calgary International Airport with services from WestJet and Air Canada,” said City of Cranbrook officials. “With the suspension of Pacific Coastal’s service, we are hoping this triggers an increase in flight services from both WestJet and Air Canada.
Pacific Coastal stopped offering flights in early 2020, which officials said was caused by a pilot shortage. The service was able to pick back up by July of that year.