Canada’s largest and busiest airport is Toronto Pearson International Airport (YYZ), with over 65,000 scheduled flights in 2025. The airport’s top ten routes alone saw a passenger capacity of over 10 million seats. The most popular destination from YYZ is Montréal–Trudeau International Airport (YUL), followed by Vancouver International Airport (YVR) and Ottawa (YOW).
The top five destinations also include LaGuardia Airport (LGA) in New York and Calgary International Airport (YYC). Air Canada dominates all ten routes from YYZ, with a 20% gap between the first and second most frequent destination.
Toronto and Air Canada face challenges with lower cross-border travel due to political issues, leading to a decrease in traffic between the United States and Canada. Cirium, an aviation analytics company, reports that Montréal had the largest number of round-trip flights from YYZ in 2025, with 930,000 seats available. Vancouver, on the other hand, had a slightly lower number of flights but a higher seat capacity of 1. 1 million. Air Canada remains the dominant airline for these routes.
Toronto Pearson International Airport is spread over 4,600 acres and has five runways of 2,744 meters (9,000 feet) in length. It serves over 50 million passengers annually and has 155 destinations operated by 50 different airlines. Pearson also supports 50,000 jobs in the Toronto area and facilitates 6. 3% of Ontario Province’s GDP. Its air cargo operations see almost 400,000 tons of deliveries annually, with over a dozen carriers serving the airport.
Pearson LIFT is a three-pronged upgrade program for the airport, including expansion of Terminals 1 and 3, new parking facilities and ground transport access, and potential construction of a new terminal. The program aims to improve passenger experience and strengthen global connectivity.
Air Canada operates the most flights from YYZ, with a 50% market share according to OAG Aviation. The airline has seen a steady increase in traffic since the pandemic-induced halt in air travel, with 86% of its routes serving North American destinations. The carrier also plans to expand its fleet with the addition of new routes to Shanghai, Budapest, and Prague.
Toronto’s strategic location between Canada’s two coasts makes it an ideal base for Air Canada’s hub-and-spoke network. The airline’s success has enabled the growth of the aviation sector in Canada, with over 600,000 jobs and $50 billion in revenue directly tied to the industry. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) predicts a 30-50% increase in the sector over the next two decades.
Air Canada has recently added destinations in Mexico and South America, and plans to launch nonstop flights to Shanghai, Budapest, and Prague this summer.