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By Chris Brown

Suspension of vaccine mandates will ease travel in and out of Medicine Hat: airport manager

Jun 15, 2022 | 12:27 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – The manager of Medicine Hat Regional Airport says the easing of more federal travel regulations next week is both timely and positive.

Federal Transport Minister Omar Alghabra announced Tuesday that COVID-19 vaccine mandates for domestic and outbound international air travellers and federally regulated workers will be suspended on June 20.

The decision will have its biggest impact at the country’s large international airports, but our city’s airport will also get some relief.

“In terms of Medicine Hat, I think we’ll see a little bit easier trans-border travel through Calgary, we’ll have people that are available to come back to work here now working for third parties and ground handlers. I think overall it’s going to be good,” says Jeff Huntus. “The mask mandate is still in place, required through security and to board an aircraft and have a mask but that’s not a hindrance that’s just maybe an inconvenience for some people. So overall it’s very positive.”

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Areas of southeastern Alberta have some of the lowest vaccination rates in the province, keeping unvaccinated residents from boarding planes since the mandate came into effect last October.

Even with more people soon able to travel, Huntus says having one less step should speed things up at the airport. Medicine Hat hasn’t experienced delays with departures, he says but there have been issues with Medicine Hat-bound aircraft out of Calgary being delayed due to staff shortages.

After the past two years, anything that eases travel is a positive for the local airport says Huntus.

WestJet reduced service to Medicine Hat early in the pandemic, eventually suspending service in February 2021. Huntus says the airport “bottomed out” at the time. WestJet resumed service to the city one year ago.

“We’ve been incrementally improving month over month since then,” he says. “May was our best month in Medicine Hat since probably January of 2020. It’s all very positive, we’ve got good loads, the aircraft are flying near capacity.”

Huntus adds WestJet should be adding a third daily flight to Medicine Hat around the end of summer and they’ll soon be approaching Air Canada about returning to Medicine Hat.