By MICHAEL BAGINSKI/ Porter Airlines continued its network expansion last week with news of the upcoming launch of four new routes from London, Ont., notably including two to Florida – Orlando and Fort Lauderdale. And while destinations aren’t new to Porter, they do represent more lift at a time when Canadians continue to have their feathers ruffled by the trade war and the antagonist attitude of the Trump regime south of the border.
Nevertheless, Porter Airlines CEO Michael Deluce told Travel Industry Today that “both of those markets are high demand markets, despite some of the challenges with the U.S. market, and maintain that strong level of demand; so, we’re confident in their performance.
“But, of course,” he added, “we’re also supplementing that with Cancun and Montego Bay (from London), which are also very popular sun destinations. And, really, when you’re in that December to March time period, Canadians like to get away to the sun and Orlando and Fort Lauderdale remain very popular.”
Asked if the current escalation of the trade war has shown any immediate dampening of demand, Deluce declared, “There’s no significant difference. It’s been similar really since February of 2025. There was some negative impact then, that’s maintained, but Porter has been growing within that slightly smaller pie. But then the pie for travel to the U.S. is still very large. And the two destinations we launched today are still extremely popular, even if in a slight reduced state.”
Acknowledging that the launch certainly wasn’t planned to coincide with “some of the recent noise,” Deluce maintained, “These are really strong markets, especially in the winter months when we’re serving them…”
And noting that Canadians have had “a pretty good example of a lot of chaos over the past 18 months, and while slightly reduced overall, the traffic to the U.S. remains very significant – people still travel to the U.S. and Porter is growing with that.”
He added, Porter’s year-over-over traffic for the U.S. is “way up,” and continues to grow.
Recent Statistics Canada figures show four straight months of increased Canadian returns from south of the border, including 5% YOY in June.
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