Traditionally (which is to say, pre-pandemic) and very broadly, summer travel tended to be east-west while winter travel tended to be north-south. There is always a certain amount of capacity to major airports (e.g. London, Frankfurt, Orlando) that caters to business travelers and year-round vacation destinations. But in winter the seasonal capacity to Europe has been re-routed to sun destinations in Hawaii, the Caribbean, and so on. More recently that has included extra routes to Australia and the new route to New Zealand for Air Canada. (This was perhaps most visible when Rouge had a widebody fleet, but it pertained to mainline as well.)

If we continue to see capacity problems in the winter season, probably the first thing to go will be north-south routes from smaller airports with travelers instead being routed through YYZ, YVR, etc. Presumably after that would be a thinning of routes to minor sun destinations (so they fly three times a week instead of six or seven). What’s probably less likely is cutting destinations altogether, especially as winter draws closer. Or that’s my two cents, anyway…