by Jen Mallia
Last updated: 11:40 AM ET, Wed October 28, 2026
Summer 2026 was one for the record books at Vancouver International, with August being the month with the most passenger traffic ever. The 2.8 million people coming and going from the nation’s second-busiest airport (after Toronto Pearson) in August was the most traffic YVR has seen in a single month, edging out the previous record-breaking month of July, by approximately 83,000 passengers. Traffic this year was boosted by the number of visitors coming to watch World Cup soccer and cruise passengers, who made for another record-breaker at Vancouver’s cruise terminal. The total for both months was almost 5.5 million passengers, an impressive number despite the WestJet strike that disrupted service.
August is typically a busy month at the airport. Last year, 2.65 million passengers passed through Vancouver International in August. Before this summer’s record-shattering volumes, the previous highest traffic in a month was in August 2018, when the airport recorded 2.71 million passengers.
Where were all these passengers travelling to and from? Most of them were domestic travellers — a segment which saw a sizable percentage growth, from 1.33 million in August 2025 to 1.45 million in August 2026, an increase of almost 119,000 passengers, or 8.9 per cent.
Next were travellers heading to and from international destinations outside the U.S. In total, there were 727,000 passengers, which was up 12.7 percent over last year.
As the Canadian gateway to Asia, it is perhaps not surprising that the largest percentage of that traffic in Vancouver was transpacific. Asian-Pacific traffic increased a whopping 18.6 percent over last year, to 441,000 passengers this August.
Europe was also strong, with 240,000 passengers, showing a more modest 5.2 percent increase over August 2025.
Demand for travel to the U.S. continues to be soft, and passenger volumes at YVR reflected that. Transborder traffic fell to approximately 635,000 from 668,000 in August 2025, a decrease of about 5 percent. August 2024 had 700,000 people travelling on U.S. routes, before trade and political tensions were introduced.
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