Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Monday that Canada will be closing its borders to anyone who is not a Canadian citizen, in an effort to stop the spread of COVID-19.
We reached out to James Bogusz, CEO of the Regina Airport Authority to see how these changes are going to affect YQR.
While the impact isn’t known yet, Bogusz says they can feel things are slowing down.
“It certainly feels a lot slower, and there’s less demand for our commercial activities like the restaurants, and various merchants here in the terminal,” said Bogusz. “It’s certainly been a noticeable reduction in terms of how busy the airport feels.”
Bogusz adds that the economic impact of a travel slowdown at the airport could be massive.
“It is going to be significant; demand is softening from a domestic and an international standpoint,” said Bogusz. “And with these new restrictions, it’ll continue to soften demand in the immediate future.”
Bogusz hopes that once the initial spread of COVID-19 is over and restrictions get lifted, people will start to fly like normal again, but until then it’s business as usual.
“Our airport is open. We’re open for business, our staff are working,” said Bogusz “We’re taking extra precautions, but right now we’ve had no changes to our staff compliment, and we just have to see what the future holds.”
Bogusz adds that the COVID-19 pandemic is an ongoing situation, so if youre going to be travelling or returning from travel be sure to refer to guidelines laid out at www.canada.ca.
