U.S.-Canada Demand Falls, Southwest Award Prices Change, and Other Airline News This Week

Every week, we devote an article to the airline and travel stories that didn’t get an individual post in the previous 7 days. Today, we’ll look at what’s going on in air travel between the U.S. and Canada as the neighbor nations feud, examine further the changes at the biggest domestic airline, and round up more stories for you.

Let’s jump in.

Demand Plummets Between Canada and the U.S.

Canada’s second-biggest airline, WestJet, announced in January a new seasonal flight between Calgary (YYC) and New York LaGuardia (LGA), adding to its year-round service to New York-JFK. That was a few days before a new administration took office in the U.S. and began talking of annexing Canada.

Now, as tension between the U.S. and Canada and an escalating trade war lead to Canadians canceling travel south of the border, WestJet has decided to scrap that flight, which was supposed to begin May 24.

The Canadian airline said in January that “travel demand remains strong across North America, particularly during the busy summer season.” That is no longer the case. Analysis by aviation-data firm OAG shows that air travel bookings between the U.S. and Canada for the summer of 2025 have collapsed, down more than 70% from the summer of last year. WestJet, OAG adds, is adding flights to Europe instead.

Simple Flying, which reported the WestJet news, notes that other airlines are cutting transborder flights. Delta Air Lines is ending service between New York-JFK and Montreal (YUL); Air Canada is reducing frequencies between Montreal and Detroit (DTW), and between Vancouver (YVR) and Washington-Dulles (IAD), Houston-Bush (IAH), and Miami (MIA); and United Airlines is doing the same between Newark (EWR) and Toronto Pearson (YYZ).

OAG analysts note a silver lining for people still planning to travel between the U.S. and Canada: “There may be some airlines offering particularly cheap airfares over the next few months as they seek to stimulate demand.”

Southwest Will Have 9 Boarding Groups, and Dynamic Award Prices Are now Live

On the Airlines Confidential podcast, Justin Jones, who leads Operations at Southwest Airlines, told guest co-host Henry Harteveldt that when the airline moves to assigned seats, it will have 9 boarding groups.  

For comparison — excluding passengers who can preboard, like families with strollers or active-duty military — Alaska Airlines has 6 boarding groups; United has 6 as well; Delta has 8 groups; and American has 10.

The real challenge for Southwest will be making sure that people in each of those 9 groups line up at the gate only when their group is called — without crowding the boarding area.

According to Jones, assigned seating will bring a reduction in boarding time of 5 to 6 minutes compared to today’s sit-where-you-want system. A complicating factor may be that, since Southwest is also going to charge for checked bags, people will bring more luggage on board. This might create a scramble for overhead bin space and lead to gate-checked bags, which slows down boarding.

Among many other changes to its business model, Southwest has also switched to dynamic pricing for award seats in its Rapid Rewards loyalty program. Those dynamic prices are now live, and they appear to be mostly a devaluation compared to the previous pricing model.

Here’s a sample booking between New York-La Guardia (LGA) and Nashville (BNA) in June, with cash prices at the top and points prices below:

This is the very definition of dynamic pricing, with the cost in points for a given flight fluctuating in direct proportion to the cash prices. The most popular and expensive flight, the 9:55 a.m. departure, has the highest cash prices. The prices in points for it yield a value, depending on the type of fare bought, as low as 0.8 cents per point. This is well below our valuation of 1.3 cents per Rapid Rewards point.

Conversely, the cheapest flight in cash, the day’s last departure at 5 p.m., yields a point value up to 1.4 cents. Again, that’s dynamic pricing by the book.

Lufthansa A380s Get a New Business Class

The biggest airplane in Lufthansa’s fleet will get a new business class, but with a twist. It’s not going to be like the other business seats that the German airline is installing in its new airplanes and retrofitting to many of its existing ones.

Lufthansa has decided to retrofit its Airbus A380s with a different business cabin than the one, known as Allegris, that has recently debuted on its A350s.

Executive Traveller reported that the A380s will get a version of the Thompson Aero Vantage XL seat beginning in the first quarter of 2026. Until then, Lufthansa’s A380s — which currently fly from Munich (MUC) to Los Angeles (LAX) and some Asian destinations — will keep flying with a dated 2-2-2 layout in business class.

The Thompson Vantage XL is familiar to many U.S. flyers since it’s installed on most of Delta’s A350s and all of its A330-900s. While we don’t know whether Lufthansa will install the seat with a sliding door like Delta has, we can be sure that the layout will be 1-2-1, finally offering all passengers direct aisle access.

Ryanair Starts Prime, a Membership Program

Ryanair, the largest airline in Europe by number of passengers, is an ultra-low-cost carrier that famously does not have a loyalty program. As of this week, however, it has a membership plan called Ryanair Prime.

For £79 ($102) a year, Ryanair Prime gets you free reserved seats (on up to 12 flights a year), travel insurance every time you fly Ryanair, and access to 12 annual (1 each month) member-exclusive sales, sent to email.

Should you join if you are a U.S.-based traveler planning to use Ryanair’s low-cost flights within the continent? Probably not. By Ryanair’s own calculation, buying Prime and flying the airline 3 times a year saves $136, based on the value of Prime perks; that’s more than the membership fee. But most U.S. visitors to Europe do not fly Ryanair 3 times a year.

As for insurance, we recommend buying airfare with credit cards that offer travel insurance anyway, eliminating the need for policies offered by airlines.

For comparison, Ryanair’s direct competitor Easyjet offers a membership called Easyjet Plus for a much heftier £249 ($322) a year. For that money, though, you get perks like early boarding, fast-track security, and free extra-legroom seats.

Air France-KLM and Etihad Break Up … Kind of

Most big international airlines are part of a global alliance, but that doesn’t mean they can’t have side agreements with carriers in other alliances — or even carriers that aren’t in any. For example, TAP Portugal is in Star Alliance but has a reciprocal deal with unaffiliated JetBlue.

That is the case with Air France-KLM and Etihad, too. The Franco-Dutch airline is a major partner in SkyTeam but has a bilateral agreement with Etihad, which isn’t in an alliance — or rather … it had. The 2 airlines are breaking up, although they are keeping an important aspect of their deal.

AeroRoutes reported that Air France-KLM and Etihad are ending their codesharing partnership on March 29, and Etihad said that the interline agreement will end on April 15. Codesharing involves placing both airlines’ flight numbers on the same flight, while interlining means being able to travel seamlessy on different airlines.

Surprisingly, the frequent flyer partnership between the 2 “will remain unchanged,” according to Etihad. That’s good news for U.S. flyers, who can still redeem easy-to-obtain Flying Blue miles to fly on Etihad:

Angola’s TAAG Airlines Wants To Fly to the U.S.

Flights between the U.S. and Africa are too few to meet demand, but there may be a new one from a carrier mostly unknown outside its home country.

Angola’s government-owned airline TAAG has told the U.S. Department of Transportation it plans to serve Houston-Bush (IAH) from Luanda (LAD), Ishrion Aviation reported.

The African airline has received the first of 4 Boeing 787-9s that can easily cover the 7,600-mile route. Angola is a major oil producer, and Houston has a high concentration of energy companies.

The problem is that Angola does not have a Category 1 rating from the Federal Aviation Administration, meaning its airlines are not allowed to serve the U.S. for safety reasons. The Angolan government has been hoping to begin flights to the U.S. for years. In 2019, it hired Washington-based aviation consultancy Wicks Group to assist in getting a Cat 1 rating.

Until that happens, TAAG — even with a new ambitious strategy — won’t land in the U.S. Its attractiveness is also limited by the lack of mileage-earning opportunities with popular loyalty programs.

Final Thoughts

From airlines in Canada cutting flights to the U.S. to a small but ambitious player in Southern Africa hoping to start one, we’ve seen a lot of news in air travel this week. Check back with us next Saturday for our next news roundup.