Originally Posted by
flyingcrooked
I find this argument baffling. I guess the idea is that people are avoiding flying from Canada to Paris because they don't want to get caught up in the Olympic madness. Is that also supposed to be preventing Canadians from flying to Dublin, Edinburgh, London, Lisbon, Frankfurt, Geneva, Munich, Barcelona, Madrid, Athens, Rome, Milan, Venice, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Manchester, Brussels, and Vienna? Is that the idea?
Here's one take from
this piece on CityNews.:
Despite Canadians’ continued thirst for Mediterranean getaways, the airline’s transatlantic ticket proceeds suffered in its latest quarter as travellers from France and Germany opted to stay on the Continent to soak up the Olympic Games as well as Euro 2024.
“Core Europe, markets like France, Germany, where there’s a significant point-of-sale Europe component, that was quite weak,” said Mark Galardo, Air Canada’s head of revenue and network planning.
“The Olympics and a bit of the Euro soccer tournament all contributed to some of those declines.”
The distracting athletics along with a glut of Atlantic flights from competitors helped prompt Air Canada to cut its capacity for trips across the pond, Galardo said.
While the Olympics are typically a tourism boon, many vacationers opted to steer clear of the City of Light, with parts of central Paris closed off for the duration of the games.
“A number of travellers have decided to try to avoid France during the Olympics,” said analyst Chris Murray of ATB Capital Markets.