Kirsten and Todd Harkins flew more than 2,100 miles to John Wayne Airport from Canada to spend a weekend on a 100-foot sport fishing boat, looking to hook tuna.
The Vancouver couple also spent quality time with their son, Jansen Harkins, an NHL hockey center with the Anaheim Ducks.
The Canadians wouldn’t be here, but for their son and the generous fishing lure.
“Canada is proud to be its own country,” said Kirsten Harkins, recalling President Donald Trump’s tauntings to make the country a 51st state. “American people are very, very nice. But it’s the administration right now. Most Canadians are completely disgusted in America.”
A survey of Canadians by travel analysts at Longwoods International showed 60% said that U.S. policies, trade practices and political statements made them less likely to travel to the U.S. in the next 12 months.
As summer vacations wind down this weekend, reports from local airports show that many Canadians did, in fact, skip their usual trek to Southern California resorts and beaches.
In the June-July period, Canadian travelers passing through Los Angeles International Airport were down by more than 25%. At John Wayne Airport, international travelers fell 20%. That retreat helped pull down overall international travel numbers, even as trips to other countries remained robust.
Feeling down
LAX, the region’s largest airport for international travelers, saw the steepest drop in summertime’s Canadian travelers.
“Our Canadian passengers for the month of July were down 27%, which is about 70,000 passengers on a year-over-year basis,” said Doug Webster, LAX’s chief of operations and maintenance officer. “That’s consistent with what we’ve seen for the summer months. In June, the seats were down 21% and August is going to be down 25-26%.”
Webster expects some moderation toward the end of the year, but no end in the trend until next year.
At LAX, the overall international traffic count of inbound and outbound travelers fell 1.8% in July and 1.6% for the year compared with the same seven-month period a year ago. International numbers were buoyed by an uptick in travel to Mexico, Asia and elsewhere, according to Webster.
“Without Canada, we would have actually been positive in the month of July, and we’d be positive for the year if Canadian traffic had been neutral year-over-year,” he said.
LAX handled a total of 185,000 travelers from Canada in July, down from roughly 254,000 in the same year-ago month. “It’s an important market for us, and is still the largest international destination that we have,” Webster said.
Montreal-based Air Canada declined to comment on the drop in traffic with Southern California airports, while Calgary-based WestJet spokesman Josh Yeats confirmed a decline in flights to John Wayne and LAX.
“We have experienced a shift in the demand between Canada and some U.S. destinations and as a result, we have redeployed a number of aircraft to other opportunistic markets and to where demand remains strong,” Yeats said.
Travel to and from other countries such as from Asia, Europe, South America and Mexico is mostly unaffected at LAX and John Wayne, which only flies internationally to Mexico and Canada.
Meanwhile, Ontario International Airport — which doesn’t have any carriers flying passengers directly to Canada — is riding new highs in international travel, thanks to new flight routes.
The airport broke single-month records for international travelers this summer with a 53% jump in July compared with a year ago. That followed a record-setting haul in June that saw international travel rise 27.1% from the same month in 2024.
Atif Elkadi, chief executive officer of the Ontario International Airport Authority, attributed the rise to a boost in service to Mexico and new flights by Taiwan-based STARLUX Airlines, which operates four round-trip trips a week to Taipei, Taiwan.
Mexican discount carrier Volaris added 14 new weekly flights to destinations in Mexico — plus new destinations to the resort city Cabo San Lucas on the southern tip of Mexico’s Baja California peninsula, and the central Mexican cities of Leon and Morelia. The February expansion by Volaris marked the largest single-day increase in international service for the airport.
Also see: International travelers cutting their visits to Southern California
Going elsewhere
John Wayne Airport saw a nearly 20% drop in international passenger traffic in June — a continuation of its initial woes that first cropped up in May when the Santa Ana airport saw international service to and from Canada and Mexico fall 19.2% compared with May 2024. The airport has yet to release its July statistics.
A visit to the airport on Aug. 22, 2025, showed empty ticket counters for both Air Canada and WestJet.
As the summer kicked off, WestJet and Air Canada reported fewer flights between Canada and John Wayne compared with a year ago. Air Canada carried 19% fewer passengers in May, while WestJet moved nearly 45% fewer, according to figures provided by John Wayne.
John Wayne Airport Director Charlene Reynolds said that international service at the airport is generally “shaped by airline decisions based on market demand, fleet availability, and broader route planning strategies.”
“While we’ve seen some fluctuations in passenger volumes and flight frequencies to our only international destinations, Canada and Mexico, these changes are consistent with seasonal and industry trends.”
The airport operates under a number of flight restrictions, which makes it tough to meet international travel demands compared with other larger airports.
John Wayne restrictions include the number of flights allowed, a nighttime curfew for commercial airlines, limits on average daily departures and an annual passenger cap of 11.8 million passengers. The runway also is too small for larger, international-bound airplanes.
For some Canadians, their U.S.-bound tickets were already bought, the trip too enticing to cancel.
Vancouver resident Greg Oleksiuk and his family planned their trip to Disneyland months ago. They were determined to enjoy their weeklong stay at the Tropicana Inn & Suites, just a short walk to the Anaheim theme park.
“We are not happy about it,” said Oleksiuk of Trump’s dig about claiming Canada. “We had some trepidation coming here, but we really wanted to visit Disneyland. We’re Disneyland fans and don’t know if we’ll be doing other trips to the states.”
Oleksiuk, who spent $7,000 on the vacation for his family of four said he considers much of Trump’s talk “nonsense.”
“The tariffs impacting our economy is what most Canadians care about.”
