Traffic in Canada is heavily concentrated: Toronto Pearson International Airport (YYZ) alone handles about 46.8 million passengers a year, roughly 49% of the 95 million across the 4 airports listed here. That pattern is typical of a country with one dominant hub carrier feeding a single gateway.
Between them these airports operate 14 runways serving 4 cities, and the country spans 3 time zones, so a domestic flight here can change your watch. The highest field is Calgary International Airport at 3,557 ft, where thinner air lengthens the takeoff run. Every airport below links to a live map of aircraft observed within available ADS-B coverage around the field.
The next airport in the ranking is Vancouver International Airport (YVR) at about 26.4 million passengers. The gap to YYZ is 20.4 million, while the three busiest airports account for roughly 100% of traffic represented by this list. Most listed traffic is therefore concentrated at the top of the network.
The airports are spread across roughly 7 degrees of latitude and 49 degrees of longitude. That geographic spread makes weather, daylight and local operating conditions materially different across the same national network. Field elevations span 3,543 ft, so crews can move between very different takeoff-performance conditions. The average across this selected set is 3.5 runways per airport.
Read airport by airport, the selected Canada network is not interchangeable: Toronto Pearson International Airport (YYZ) has 5 runways and about 46.8 million annual passengers, Vancouver International Airport (YVR) has 3 runways and about 26.4 million annual passengers, Montreal - Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport (YUL) has 3 runways and about 22.0 million annual passengers and Calgary International Airport (YYC) has 3 runways and no comparable traffic figure. Those differences matter when comparing a live map. A larger passenger total indicates schedule scale, while runway count describes physical layout; neither number by itself proves how delayed, connected or operationally efficient an airport will be on a particular day.
With 4 gateways in this data cut, the Canada hierarchy is readable directly: YYZ contributes 49% of the represented passenger total, YVR contributes 28% of the represented passenger total, YUL contributes 23% of the represented passenger total and YYC contributes 0% of the represented passenger total. That makes YYZ the first gateway here without reducing YVR to a minor field, since its traffic is about 56% of YYZ's.
The physical ranking differs from the traffic ranking: YYZ has 5 listed runways, YVR has 3 listed runways, YUL has 3 listed runways and YYC has 3 listed runways. YYC is the highest of the group at 3,557 ft, against 14 ft at YVR. Those facts describe layout and setting, not a live capacity forecast; weather, active runway configuration and traffic flow still decide what a viewer sees on the map at a given hour.