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By the end of June, wine-tasting in the Okanagan will only be a flight away for residents of Regina and Saskatoon.
WestJet announced Friday that starting June 24, the airline will offer direct flights twice a week from Regina to Kelowna.
Saskatoon will also see twice-weekly flights to Kelowna. WestJet will also offer direct flights from YXE to Victoria.
The new route came as good news to Regina Airport Authority CEO James Bogusz, who said it hasn’t been tried before.
“People have always been able to go to Kelowna quite easily through Calgary but nothing beats a non-stop flight. So we’re really glad to see how it goes this year,” Bogusz said.
“We’re just happy to see that they’re willing to take some risk and give a new market a try.”
In total, WestJet announced 11 new domestic routes across Western Canada. A news release from the airline said it is looking at the summer months with “cautious optimism.”
“We are at an inflection point; one that is buoyed by the rollout of vaccines, months of learning how to take appropriate precautions, and a view to Canada’s beautiful summer months that allows us to spend more time outdoors,” read a statement from the airline’s CEO, Ed Sims.
Bogusz hopes WestJet’s optimism comes to fruition, saying passenger levels at the airport for January and February hovered around the 10 per cent mark. As people are being advised against non-essential travel, Bogusz said that cuts deep into air travel.
“We haven’t seen the corner turn yet,” he said.
There have been some positive developments of late, with the introduction of private testing on site and Air Canada announcing summer flights to Montreal.
“So I think there’s a lot of optimism that in the next few months, hopefully things will start relaxing a little bit, vaccines will continue to roll out and we’ll start seeing an uptick in travel,” Bogusz said.
He said airports and businesses that rely on tourism are banking on a strong summer for travel.
“Those tourism operators are desperate; they certainly need to see and save this summer,” Bogusz said. “We lost last summer. This summer has to happen.”