“In May, we said our team was ready. In July, the results showed they were. Today we can say they upheld that standard through the most demanding stretch of the year,” said Marie-Pier Berman, Vice President and Chief of Operations at NAV CANADA. “Our teams at Canada’s major airports delivered approximately 85 per cent fewer NAV CANADA-attributable delays compared to the same period last year. NAV CANADA’s air traffic controllers, flight service specialists and support teams across the country stepped up, shift after shift, and the credit is theirs.”
From May 1 to August 31, the share of scheduled flights impacted by a traffic management initiative where NAV CANADA staffing or equipment was a factor fell close to 85 per cent year over year across Toronto Pearson, Montréal-Trudeau, Calgary and Vancouver international airports. The proportion of scheduled flights impacted fell from 1.54 per cent in 2025 to 0.24 per cent in 2026.
Each of the four airports recorded an improvement. The largest absolute gain was at Vancouver International Airport, where the share of impacted scheduled flights fell from 4.42 per cent in 2025 to 0.64 per cent in 2026, and the largest proportional improvement was at Calgary International Airport, from 1.16 per cent to 0.05 per cent. Traffic management initiatives attributable to NAV CANADA staffing across the four airports were down 65 per cent from 2025, with fewer at each airport.
These gains are not a function of quieter skies. The four airports handled 394,919 flights between May 1 and August 31, compared with 391,245 over the same period in 2025, representing a small increase of 0.9 per cent.