AI Analysis: Aircraft movements, by geography, airports with NAV CANADA services and other selected airports, monthly

Executive Summary

Canadian aircraft movements grew 15.8% from January 2022 to December 2025, reaching a peak of 615,235 movements in July 2025 and averaging approximately 462,481 movements per month across 48 months of data. The dataset spans 14 geographic regions and 126 unique time series vectors, revealing a strongly right-skewed distribution where a handful of major hub airports — predominantly NAV CANADA-serviced — drive the bulk of national activity. Seasonal patterns are consistent throughout, with summer peaks and winter troughs reflecting typical aviation demand cycles in Canada.

Key Findings

• Canada recorded over 22.2 million total aircraft movements between January 2022 and December 2025, with monthly figures averaging ~462,481 and peaking at 615,235 in July 2025.
• Overall aircraft movements grew 15.8% from January 2022 to December 2025, reflecting a sustained post-pandemic recovery in Canadian aviation.
• The distribution is strongly right-skewed: the mean (33,731) is nearly 6x the median (5,880), driven by a small number of high-traffic hub airports inflating the average.
• NAV CANADA-serviced airports average 41,820 movements per month — roughly 12x higher than non-NAV CANADA airports, which average just 3,639 movements per month.
• All three movement types (Itinerant, Local, and Total) are extremely strongly correlated, with the weakest pair — Itinerant vs. Local — still registering r = 0.984, indicating busier airports are consistently busier across all operation classes.
• 75% of all records fall below 26,376 monthly movements, yet the top quarter spans an enormous range up to 615,235, highlighting the outsized influence of Canada's largest airports.
• A clear and consistent seasonal pattern repeats each year, with summer peaks and winter troughs, and only one month across the entire period registered a z-score exceeding 2, indicating no extreme anomalies in the national trend.