Air Canada may be the official carrier of Team Canada, but that didn’t stop the Paris Olympics from hobbling its summer sales. Despite Canadians’ continued thirst for Mediterranean getaways, the airline’s transatlantic ticket proceeds suffered in its latest quarter as travellers from France and Germany opted to stay on the Continent to soak up the Olympics as well as Euro 2024, and many Canadians decided to avoid France during the Games.

“Core Europe, markets like France, Germany, where there’s a significant point-of-sale Europe component, that was quite weak,” said Mark Galardo, Air Canada’s head of revenue and network planning. “The Olympics and a bit of the Euro soccer tournament all contributed to some of those declines.”

The distracting athletics along with a glut of Atlantic flights from competitors helped prompt Air Canada to cut its capacity for trips across the pond, Galardo said.

While the Olympics are typically a tourism boon, many vacationers opted to steer clear of the City of Light, with parts of central Paris closed off for the duration of the games.

As rivals flocked to transatlantic routes, Air Canada dialled down its service there and ramped up Pacific flight volumes by a third. Two new routes — Toronto to Seoul, South Korea, and Montreal to Osaka, Japan — did “exceedingly well,” Galardo said.