Flying WestJet to the US? These 27 Routes No Longer Exist

WestJet has grounded 27 U.S. routes through June 2026 as Canadian travelers turn away from American destinations — see which flights are gone and why the airline pulled back.

WestJet is permanently ending 27 U.S. transborder routes on a rolling basis between April 2025 and June 2026, canceling flights as Canada-U.S. travel demand drops 15%.

The move comes as WestJet slashes its overall U.S. flight capacity by 13.3% this summer, redeploying aircraft once flown to American leisure destinations toward higher-yielding markets in Latin America, the Caribbean and Europe.

In the third quarter of 2026 alone, WestJet is cutting 1,260 Canada-U.S. flights, a 14.1% decrease from the nearly 9,000 transborder flights it operated during the same period a year earlier. Air Transat has exited the transborder market entirely over the same stretch, even as the broader Canada-U.S. air travel market has stayed nearly flat, edging up just 0.1% in the third quarter.

WestJet Chief Executive Officer Alexis von Hoensbroech called the falloff “not a disaster” but said Canadian passengers “are voting with their feet and their wallets,” opting for other international destinations over the United States.

“We saw a notable decline in transborder travel demand throughout 2025,” Julia Kaiser, WestJet’s media relations advisor, said in a statement.

“As a result, we made timely decisions to modify our network to stay aligned with where Canadians want to go,” she said.

Kaiser said the carrier does not expect the trend to reverse. “We see no indication that this trend will change in the foreseeable future and we are implementing reductions to our transborder network in 2026 on an ongoing basis,” she said.

A review of Cirium Diio aviation data found the systematic elimination of 27 U.S. routes, comparing flight schedules from January 2025 through July 2026 against forward bookings extending to April 2027.

Vancouver International Airport absorbed the heaviest losses of any Canadian gateway, losing eight direct U.S. routes and posting a 46.6% year-over-year drop in U.S. flights this summer. Edmonton International Airport lost five routes. Calgary International Airport, WestJet’s main hub, was largely spared, losing only its Raleigh-Durham route and recording a modest 3.2% reduction in transborder flights.

The 27 Discontinued Routes

The full list of routes WestJet has discontinued, drawn from Cirium Diio schedule data, along with the month service ended and the year the route began.

One casualty was the Vancouver-to-Boston Logan International Airport route, which lasted a single operating season. WestJet launched daytime service on June 9, 2025, and flew it for the final time on Oct. 13, 2025, unable to compete with JetBlue’s red-eye service on the same 2,185-nautical-mile route.

The Vancouver-to-Tampa International Airport route fared even worse. WestJet’s Saturday-only flight recorded a load factor — the percentage of available seats filled with paying passengers — of just 54.2%. Air Canada, flying the identical route, posted an almost identical 54.4% load factor, pointing to a broader lack of demand rather than one airline’s failure to compete.

John Gradek, an aviation management instructor at McGill University, said airlines initially expected the slump to be temporary. “The airlines were hoping that this was just going to be a flash in the pan … that it would eventually settle back into a return to sun destinations by the time the fourth quarter rolled along,” he said. “And the first quarter doesn’t look much brighter.”

Gradek said Canadian travelers are simply looking elsewhere. “Canadians are moving and they’re trying different destinations,” he said.

Jacques Roy, a former transport professor, said the shift reflects a broader pattern among Canadian vacationers. “There is a natural reaction from Canadian travellers, who try to get their suntan from other destinations,” he said.

Air Canada, WestJet’s larger domestic rival, described the U.S. slowdown differently. Mark Galardo, the airline’s executive vice president and chief commercial officer, said, “We see a plateau. The situation has not worsened,” adding, “We’re seeing a lot of demand growth into European leisure destinations.” Air Canada’s outlook contrasts with WestJet’s deeper capacity cuts, though both carriers are expanding across the Atlantic.

Rather than absorb losses on underperforming U.S. routes, WestJet is redirecting its Boeing 737 narrow-body fleet toward Mexico, the Caribbean and Central America. The airline is also adding transatlantic routes for its summer 2026 schedule, including flights from Halifax to Copenhagen, Lisbon and Madrid, and from Edmonton and Winnipeg to Reykjavik, Iceland, using the extended range of its Boeing 737 MAX 8 jets.

WestJet’s transborder retreat comes despite a strategic partnership with Delta Air Lines, which along with Korean Air and Air France-KLM holds a minority stake in the Canadian carrier. Delta acquired 15% of WestJet, Korean Air took 10%, and Air France-KLM obtained a 2.3% share purchased from Delta, in a deal valued at roughly $330 million for Delta’s stake, $220 million for Korean Air’s and $50 million for Air France-KLM’s, which closed Oct. 22, 2025.

“Investing in a world-class partner like WestJet aligns our interests and ensures that we remain focused on providing a world-class global network and customer experience for travelers in the United States and Canada,” Delta Chief Executive Officer Ed Bastian said in a statement.

WestJet completed its full integration of Sunwing Airlines on May 29, 2025, placing all 150 Boeing 737 aircraft under a single Air Operator Certificate — a consolidation that lets the airline shift jets quickly between underperforming U.S. routes and Sunwing’s Caribbean and Mexican vacation network.

“Completing two airline consolidations in just two years — the first with Swoop in 2024 and now Sunwing — was complex and required coordination across every aspect of our business, from operational, labour, and regulatory areas to experiential and cultural elements,” von Hoensbroech said.

WestJet is also contending with labor unrest that could disrupt bookings. The Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 8125, representing about 4,400 flight attendants, could legally strike as early as Aug. 2, 2026, after voting 99.4% in favor of a strike, in a dispute over pay for unpaid safety duties. The airline has waived change and cancellation fees for passengers flying between July 30 and Aug. 4, 2026.

“We believe that an agreement can be reached while avoiding guest disruption. However, we understand that uncertainty around travel plans can be concerning,” WestJet said in a statement.

In January 2026, WestJet reversed a cabin redesign that had crammed 180 passengers into 28-inch seat pitches on some Boeing 737s, mimicking ultra-low-cost carriers such as Spirit Airlines. The reversal, announced Jan. 16, 2026, followed passenger backlash and concerns among flight crews about emergency evacuation times, and required removing a full row of seats from 22 reconfigured aircraft.