Canada’s Air Transat will end all flights to the United States by June 2026, cutting its final routes to Florida amid declining Canadian travel demand to the U.S.
One foreign carrier will end all flying to the U.S. by June. Canada’s Air Transat announced reductions to its services that will ultimately end all transborder flights in the early summer.
The Montreal-based airline will end services at its last two American destinations: Fort Lauderdale and Orlando, for the 2026 summer season. Flights from Montreal to Orlando will end on May 3, and flights from Quebec City to Orlando and Fort Lauderdale will end in May and June.
Air Transat has also operated flights between Florida and Canada during the winter season; whether or not U.S. service will set to resume then will be decided at a later date, a spokesperson told The Montreal Gazette. Air Transat has not maintained a large presence in the United States, primarily flying Canadians to leisure destinations in Europe, the Caribbean, Mexico, and Central America. Air Transat flew to nine destinations in the United States as recently as last March.
The news comes after WestJet, another Canadian airline, announced it would exit ten nonstop routes between the US and Canada, reducing its transborder seat capacity by over a quarter for the month of July. Cuts included service to Raleigh/Durham, Chicago O’Hare, San Francisco, Seattle/Tacoma, Orlando, Los Angeles, Boston, Nashville, and San Diego. Many of the cities with flight cuts retained WestJet flights to other cities in Canada.
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Air Canada has also made a schedule cut for summer, quietly removing its seasonal Seattle/Tacoma-Montreal nonstop. That flight had previously operated on a summer-only basis. Passengers between the two cities can still connect to Montreal on Air Canada flights via Vancouver or Toronto.
In 2025, the transborder market hit a milestone it hasn’t reached since 2006—more Americans visited Canada than Canadians came south. Approximately 90% of Canada’s population lives within 100 miles of its border with the United States, while the US population is far less concentrated near the border with Canada.
Demand by Canadians for travel to the U.S. has been down since last year, following US President Donald Trump’s threats to annex Canada, and airlines based in Canada have reduced flights throughout the year.
Even with 2025’s significant downturn in visitor arrivals from Canada, the US remains Canada’s top outbound travel market, with Canadians preferring sun destinations in California, Florida, Hawai‘i, and Arizona. In a movement informally known as “Elbows Up”, Canadians have been pushing back against perceived U.S. government aggression by instead choosing sun destinations outside the United States.
Air Transat operates leisure flights on a low-cost model, charging for extras like checked bags and seat assignments, and for meals and snacks on shorter flights. The airline once touted its connections via Montreal and Toronto for US-originating travelers bound for destinations in Europe, but that option will be suspended until the airline resumes service to US airports.
Air Transat was founded in Montreal and began service in 1987. A 2019 buyout of the airline by Air Canada was delayed by the Covid-19 pandemic, and ultimately scrapped in 2021 after it failed to secure the approval of the European Commission. Air Canada had stated its intention to continue operating Air Transat as a separate brand had the acquisition been completed.
The airline operates a fleet of 43 Airbus aircraft, including the widebody Airbus A330 and the narrowbody Airbus A321. The airline has also ordered the long-range Airbus A321XLR, which can fly nonstop across the Atlantic.
On April 1, 2025, Air Transat jokingly announced it would start referring to the Atlantic Ocean as the Canadien Ocean, in reference to President Trump’s renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.