The John G. Diefenbaker International Airport is used to processing thousands of passengers in the days leading up to Christmas. (Keenan Sorokan/650 CKOM)

By Keenan Sorokan/CKOM News staff

Saskatoon airport remains empty during normally busy holiday season

Dec 21, 2020 | 12:42 PM

These days, Christmas time at the airport is nothing like how you might remember it — but that’s not unusual in 2020.

The final weekend before Christmas would normally be the busiest weekend at airports across the continent. Instead, COVID-19 restrictions has the John G. Diefenbaker International Airport in Saskatoon looking like it was abandoned.

It’s not full of people jostling to escape the chilly temperatures or people huddling around any available outlets to charge a phone.

The only activity you’re likely to see is staff members moving across the terminals.

“We’re just trying to make the best of a pretty sad situation,” C.J. Dushinski, the vice-president of business development and service quality with the Saskatoon Airport Authority, said.

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“It’s pretty empty here, unfortunately.”

Instead of working around the clock to ensure passengers, baggage and parcels were moving through security and getting to flights on time, Dushinski and the rest of the airport authority are left wondering when the airport will be that hectic again.

“It’s been a pretty different experience,” she said.

A total of 1.49-million passengers went through the airport in 2019. That figure is expected to drop drastically when this year’s numbers are tallied in the coming months.

In November, CEO Stephen Maybury noted the financial implications of having 78 per cent fewer passengers travelling through the airport compared to the same time last year.

“It’s been a stressful time,” Maybury said at the time. “Financially, we’re incurring losses. They are operating losses that we currently are absorbing due to the pandemic, and we’re dealing with those with debt.”

Even with promising news of a COVID-19 vaccine being distributed in countries across the world, staff at Saskatoon’s airport aren’t expecting travel to return to 2019 levels until 2022 at the earliest.

“It’s sort of the news we’ve been waiting to hear — that light at the end of the tunnel we’ve been waiting for,” Dushinski said of vaccines being rolled out.

“We still have a long way to go. We expect at least another year of some pretty strict restrictions.”

Dushinski said staff are rallying around making the airport as safe as possible until restrictions are lifted to build up passenger confidence.

Eleven flights are scheduled to arrive in Saskatoon on Monday without much fanfare.

There likely won’t be crowds of people waiting to hug and kiss loved ones at the arrival gate. The empty and silent airport serves as another reminder that Christmas this year will be unlike any other in recent memory.