Fridays in August appear to be the time to avoid Vancouver International Airport.
August is expected to be the busiest travel month overall this year at YVR, and Fridays are projected to be the busiest days of the busiest month.
And the day with the highest travel volume is projected to be Friday, Aug. 8 when nearly 92,000 passengers are expected to make their way through the airport.
Throughout the busy summer month, more than 2.7 million passengers are expected to travel through the airport, 40 per cent of the total number of summer travellers between June 7 and Sept. 2.
Over the B.C. Day long weekend alone, about 360,000 travellers are expected at YVR.
This is a 7.4-per-cent increase from last summer and a 3.8-per-cent increase from 2019, the year before COVID-19 largely shut down air travel.
Friday, Aug. 1, is expected to see 91,780 passengers, with Monday, Aug. 4, following closely with 91,613 passengers.
The top cities people are leaving YVR to travel to this long weekend are Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton and Montreal. San Francisco is the top U.S. destination, and the fifth most popular destination overall.
To accommodate the increase in summer travellers, YVR opened its e-Gates last week for priority travellers at one of its domestic security screening checkpoints.
The e-Gates process passengers with Air Canada's Digital ID program, but will also be available to eligible domestic priority travellers on Air Canada, West Jet and Porter Airlines, whereby passengers can join the security express flow lane by scanning their boarding pass.
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