While the number of Canadians going to the U.S. for leisure trips saw a small bounceback over several months last summer, cross-border travel is still at a low unseen in decades driven above all by President Donald Trump’s aggressive rhetoric and politics toward the northern neighbor.
According to the monthly numbers published by the Canadian government’s statistics agency, the number of Canadian trips to the U.S. in September 2026 was down by 29% compared to two years ago in 2024 — a 31% decrease for car border crossings and a 19% drop for flights.
Air Canada to permanently cut flight to South Carolina in 2027
Airlines have, in turn, responded to the weaker demand by cutting routes to smaller cities that once served a market but now do not bring in enough sold seats.
Air Canada was already scheduled to phase out its routes from Minneapolis and Detroit from Montreal and Indianapolis from Toronto by the end of October. The national airline is now reported to not be bringing back its flight to Charleston International Airport (CHS) from Toronto Pearson (YYZ) for 2027.
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As a seasonal route that began in March and last year ended at the start of September, the Toronto-Charleston flight was first launched in 2001 and brought back for the summer of 2024 after being retired during the Covid-19 pandemic.
It was, at the time of launch, the first direct flight to Charleston from outside of the United States. Over the years, it has served both business travelers going between the two cities and the growing travel interest in the city from Canada.
As Toronto was Air Canada’s only flight into Charleston, the decision not to bring back the seasonal route marks a market exit from the city and the state of South Carolina.
Prior to 2025, Charleston was seeing increasing travel interest from Canadian tourists.
‘We have made the decision to discontinue:’ Air Canada on axed Charleston-Toronto flight
According to the analysis from aviation website Simple Flying, the 200 departures and 15,200 seats flown from Toronto in 2024 dropped to just 92 departures and 6,992 seats flown following Trump’s Canadian tariffs and repeated comments about making Canada a 51st state in 2025.
As such, Air Canada made the business decision to not bring back the route.
Without commenting on the reasons for the abrupt dropoff in travel numbers, an Air Canada representative confirmed the suspension of the seasonal flight. They said that, above all, its flight network is determined by where its customers are shown to be purchasing tickets.
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“Air Canada regularly reviews its schedule to ensure capacity is aligned with customer demand and travel patterns,” the airline spokesperson said to Charleston’s Post and Courier. “As part of that process, we have made the decision to discontinue our summer 2027 Charleston-Toronto seasonal route for these commercial reasons.”
Air Canada’s main competitor, the Calgary-based WestJet, has also recently made sweeping cuts to flights into Nashville, Chicago, Atlanta, and Seattle from Canadian cities such as Edmonton, Toronto, and Vancouver throughout 2026. The airline is also expanding into new international destinations like Belize City, Merida, and São Paulo from Canada.
