01Published airline schedules
1980–2027
nonstop departures, YLW & YVR
- 219 destinations
- Departures & seats by year
- Filed future schedules
Answers
What does each airport offer?
The supply gap
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DPAIYLW Traffic
DPAIYLW Traffic
DPAIYLW Traffic Insights · Setting the Scene01 · Supply 02 · Catchment 03 · Demand DPAIYLW Traffic Insights · Executive Summary01 02 03 04 DPAIYLW Traffic Insights · What It Would Take
YLW Traffic Insights
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DPAIA DPAI Use Case Study
Market Leakage · Okanagan, B.C.
YLW Traffic
Insights
Every evening, Okanagan travelers fly home over this lake, but not all of them flew from it. A signal-driven look at the demand Kelowna loses to Vancouver, and what it would take to win it back.
YLWKelowna Intl
≈ 390 km · 4 h by road
YVRVancouver Intl
www.getDPAI.com
DPAIA DPAI Use Case Study
Market Leakage · Okanagan, B.C.
YLW Traffic
Insights
Every evening, Okanagan travelers fly home over this lake, but not all of them flew from it. A signal-driven look at the demand Kelowna loses to Vancouver, and what it would take to win it back.
YLWKelowna Intl
≈ 390 km · 4 h by road
YVRVancouver Intl
www.getDPAI.com
Setting the Scene
One region. Two airports. A quiet leak.
Kelowna International is the Okanagan's home airport, yet a meaningful share of its catchment drives past YLW to fly from Vancouver. Before any network answer comes the evidence: who leaks, when, and to where.
100 kmOkanagan catchment around YLW
≈ 390 kmby road to YVR
≈ 4 hdrive, each way
The question
How much Okanagan demand leaks to YVR, and what would it take to win it back?
YLW · home airport
YVR · the gateway it leaks to
100 km catchment
DPAIYLW Traffic Insights · Setting the SceneData Foundation
Three signals, stacked on one map.
No single dataset shows leakage. Schedules show what is offered, location shows who actually flies, and search shows what people wanted. Together they show the gap between them.
02DPAI Location Intelligence
968,761
devices observed at YLW & YVR
- Common evening location
- 343 home postal areas
- Aggregated to ~5 km cells
Answers
Who uses each airport, and where do they live?
The catchment leak
03DPAI Search Intelligence
609,832
flight searches from the BC Interior, 2024
- 79 searching communities
- Origin airport: YLW or YVR
- Destinations searched
Answers
What does the region want to buy?
The demand leak
Joined on geography
Every signal is pinned to a place: a destination, a home postal area, a searching community. That shared map is what lets one story run across all three. All device data is anonymized and aggregated before it reaches a slide.
DPAIYLW Traffic Insights · Data Foundation01 · Network Evolution
Four decades, two very different networks.
Published schedules redraw the map year by year. YVR grows into a global gateway while YLW's network stays regional. That gap is where the leakage lives.
2024
2024
YLW · 2024
0
nonstop destinations · 0.0M seats
YVR · 2024
0
nonstop destinations · 0.0M seats
Nonstop destinations served1980–2027
Destinations by year
19802027
Finding
In 2024 YVR served 119 nonstop destinations to YLW's 20. Every market in that gap is a trip that starts with a drive to Vancouver.
Source: Published airline schedules · YLW & YVR nonstop departures · 1980–2027, 2027+ are filed future schedules · 219 destinations
DPAIYLW Traffic Insights · 01 · The Supply Gap02 · Evening Home Locations
Where each airport's travelers actually live.
Every point is the common evening location of devices seen at YLW or YVR. It is the true catchment, drawn from behavior rather than a radius on a map.
Share of travelers by airport
All YVRAll YLW
Where each airport's travelers liveshare of travelers
YLWYVR
Home regions
Okanagan travelers flying YVR
37%
of devices based within 100 km of Kelowna were observed at Vancouver, not YLW
Finding
More than 1 in 3 Okanagan-based travelers used YVR. At Vancouver's scale they are a rounding error; at Kelowna's, they are a third of the home market.
Source: DPAI Location Intelligence · common evening locations of devices observed at YLW & YVR · ~5 km cells, cells under 3 devices removed · Okanagan = within 100 km of YLW
DPAIYLW Traffic Insights · 02 · The Catchment02 · Airport Share by Postal Code
Every postal code picks an airport.
Every traveler observed at YLW or YVR, traced back to their home postal area. Gold means the area flies Kelowna, blue means it flies Vancouver. Hover any area for the exact split.
Airport share
100% YVR100% YLW
The question
How far does YLW's pull reach before Vancouver takes over?
Postal areas YLW wins
13 / 343
all of them in the Okanagan
YLW's best share · V1X
75%
even Kelowna's home turf leaks 1 in 4 to YVR
Penticton · V2A
48%
50 km down the valley, already a coin flip
Finding
YLW's pull is strong but short. It fades within an hour's drive, and past the Okanagan every postal area defaults to Vancouver.
Source: DPAI Location Intelligence · 633,591 Canadian travelers observed at YLW or YVR, by home postal area (FSA) · B.C. & Alberta boundaries
DPAIYLW Traffic Insights · 02 · The Catchment03 · Search Demand by Community
Where demand shops, which airport wins.
Flight searches from across the BC Interior and Fraser Valley, pinned to the community they came from. Gold is shopping from Kelowna, blue from Vancouver, size is volume.
Searches from YLW
Searches from YVR
Pie size = search volume · hover for top destinations
All searches from YLW
54%
the battle is the other 46%
Kelowna picks YLW
73%
even at home, 1 in 4 shops YVR
Kamloops picks YLW
11%
the northern Interior looks to the coast
Largest communities · YLW vs YVRsearches
Communities
Finding
The demand is here: most searches already start at YLW. The contest is for the 46% that begins with a drive.
Source: DPAI Search Intelligence · 609,832 flight searches from 79 BC Interior and Fraser Valley communities, tagged by origin airport · Jan–Dec 2024
DPAIYLW Traffic Insights · 03 · The Demand03 · What the Leak Shops For
The leak isn't going to Vancouver. It's going through it.
When the region's travelers search from YVR, they aren't shopping for Vancouver. They are shopping for the long-haul world YLW can't reach nonstop.
Top destinations searched from YVR
Destinations
The question
When the region shops Vancouver, what is it actually shopping for?
Beyond YLW's network
85%
of YVR-bound searches were for places YLW had no nonstop to in 2024
#1 destination · Delhi
20,637
searches from YVR in 2024, from this region alone
Finding
The leak is mostly long-haul: India, Southeast Asia, Europe, Australia. Those trips connect somewhere. The question is whether they start at YLW or with a four-hour drive.
Source: DPAI Search Intelligence · BC Interior and Fraser Valley searches with YVR as origin, Jan–Dec 2024, excluding Kelowna-bound searches · airports grouped by city · YLW nonstop = destination on YLW's 2024 published schedule
DPAIYLW Traffic Insights · 03 · The DemandExecutive Summary
Three signals. One leak.
Each dataset tells one part of the story. Read together, they describe a leak that is real, measurable and concentrated in a few markets.
The supply gap
20 vs. 119
nonstop destinations, YLW vs. YVR (2024)
Four decades of schedules built YVR into a global gateway while YLW stayed regional.
The catchment leak
37%
of Okanagan-based travelers were observed at YVR
YLW wins only 13 of 343 B.C. and Alberta postal areas. Even Kelowna's own postal areas leak 1 in 4.
The demand leak
85%
of YVR-bound searches were for places YLW doesn't fly nonstop
The region shops Vancouver for Delhi, London, Bangkok and Tokyo, not for Vancouver itself.
The takeaway
The Okanagan isn't short of demand. It is short of the right nonstop options, so travelers pay for them with a four-hour drive.
DPAIYLW Traffic Insights · Executive SummaryFrom Evidence to Action
What it would take to win it back.
The same signals that revealed the leak can size the routes, the timing and the audience that would close it.
Which routes would bring the most demand home?
Rank unserved destinations by searches from each community, then size them against today's YVR schedules.
Search + SchedulesBaseline from this deck
Delhi · 20.6kLondon · 10.6kBangkok · 8.2kTokyo · 8.2k
Which communities are still in play?
Target the coin-flip postal areas, like Penticton and Revelstoke, where a better schedule tips the choice.
Location + SearchBaseline from this deck
Penticton V2A · 48% YLWRevelstoke · 50% of searches
When should capacity and marketing land?
Match booking horizons and seasonal search peaks to schedule filings and campaigns.
Search timingAlready in the data
Booking horizon by communitySearch date by month
Is it working?
Track YLW's share by postal area and by searched destination, month by month, as the leak closes.
All three, ongoingBaseline from this deck
13 / 343 postal areas37% Okanagan leak54% of searches
DPAIYLW Traffic Insights · What It Would TakeThank You
Let's win back the Okanagan.
The leak is real, measurable and addressable. Bring us your airport, and we'll show you where its travelers really fly from.
Presenter
Josephine Dietrich
Managing Partner, Data Powered Aviation Intelligence (DPAI)
View LinkedIn profile →Presenter
John Pepper
Advisor, DPAI · Chief Commercial Officer, BermudAir
View LinkedIn profile →www.getDPAI.com
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