US Canada Travel Rules: Canadian airlines cut down seats to US amid intense trade war, revised travel rules

Canadian airlines have started eliminating seats for the United States even in April, the peak tourism time between the two countries, the New York Times reported, stating that the aviation industry is telling under the heat between the US-Canada trade war. The United States also has a set of new rules for Canadians travelling to the country, plus Canada is boycotting US things as President Donald Trump wants Canada to become its 51st state. There is no official call to boycott US destinations this season but there is less demand.
The reductions range from 7 percent by Air Canada to 25 percent by Flair Airlines, a discount airline, according to Visual Approach Analytics, an aviation research company, NYT reported.
A Canadian travel agency told the outlet that they are now changing their flight packages. They have entirely stopped promoting US destinations as they are receiving severe backlash for that. The focus is now more on destinations in Europe.
Air Canada told NYT that it would be reducing some U.S. flights to warmer destinations “to reflect commercial demand. OAG Aviation Worldwide Limited, an analytics company based in the United Kingdom, said advance bookings for routes between Canada and the United States from April through October are down by roughly 70 per cent, compared with the same time period last year, the report said.
Canadian residents took about 586,000 trips to the United States in February, a 13 percent drop from the same month last year, according to Canada’s national census agency. In a recent report, it also found that the number of car trips across the border in February fell to 1.2 million from about 1.5 million in February 2024, the report added.
US airlines are also reducing the frequency of routes to Canada because of the big drop in Canadian traffic into the US. United Airlines canceled a new daily route between Toronto and Los Angeles that it had planned to begin in May and said it would also reduce the frequency of other existing routes to Canada.
New US travel rules for Canada
Starting from April 11, Canadians who will be in the US for more than 30 days will have to register with the authorities. If they don’t, it could result in “penalties, fines and misdemeanors”