OTTAWA -- Nav Canada has reported a 0.6 per cent decline in air traffic last month compared with September of last year.
This was a sharp descent from a two per cent year-over-year increase in August and an annual rise of 5.5 per cent in the civil air navigation service operator's financial year ended Aug. 31.
The numbers are based on Nav Canada's weighted charging units -- a traffic measure reflecting the number of flights, aircraft size and distance flown in Canadian airspace.
A Nav spokesman said last month's decline was the first since a year-over-year drop of 0.5 per cent in November 2003, during the aftermath of the SARS crisis and the onset of the war in Iraq.
The September slippage came during a deepening financial crisis amid ongoing triple-digit crude oil prices.
