Harbour Air or Seair for your Vancouver seaplane tour?
Both airlines tie up at the same floating terminal in Coal Harbour, and their half-hour city flights cost within a few dollars of each other. The real differences are the plane you board and the way seats are handed out. This guide sets the two side by side and says who should book which.
Same terminal, different planes
Harbour Air and Seair Seaplanes share one base for their Vancouver sightseeing flights, the Vancouver Harbour Flight Centre at Burrard Landing, 1055 Canada Place. The building floats on the water of Coal Harbour, beside the Vancouver Convention Centre and a few minutes on foot from the cruise berths at Canada Place. The walk from your hotel is the same whichever you book. What separates them is the aircraft and the rules for who sits where.
Harbour Air, the big operator
Founded in 1982, Harbour Air is the largest seaplane airline in the region. Besides sightseeing loops it runs scheduled routes, Victoria and Whistler among them, so its dock handles commuters as well as visitors. The fleet ranges from single-engine de Havilland Beavers and Otters up to the twin-engine Twin Otter, and the planes in its listing photos wear blue and yellow. In 2019 the airline flew the first all-electric commercial seaplane flight, in an electric Beaver.
On the classic panorama, from ~$135, the cabin takes 8 to 14 people depending on the plane. Seats go first come, first served as you board, so the quickest walkers on the dock claim the windows, and the co-pilot seat is the pilot's decision. A free tour-guide app narrates the route if you bring headphones, and the crew offers earplugs. Arrive 40 minutes before departure, because check-in closes 20 minutes before and a no-show loses the fare. Reviewers mostly grumble about small seats and a thin briefing at the desk; one guest was never told the app existed.
Seair, the local specialist
Seair Seaplanes is locally owned and has flown the BC coast since 1980. Its city skyline flight, from ~$139, goes up in a de Havilland Beaver, the Toronto-built bush plane that first flew in 1947, and every passenger gets a window seat. You can ask for the seat beside the pilot when you check in, 30 minutes before departure, instead of racing for it on the dock. The Beaver cruises at about 1,000 feet (300 m) over the park and the bridge.
The trade-off is time. You get about 20 minutes in the air, the shortest flight at the terminal. A small plane also feels bumps more than a bigger one. Seair may seat your party with other passengers, as Harbour Air does. Its photos for the glacier and Chatterbox Falls flights show Cessna Caravans on floats, so do not assume a Beaver on the longer trips.
Every seat at a window
Seair's skyline loop puts you in a de Havilland Beaver for about 20 minutes over Stanley Park and the Lions Gate Bridge toward the North Shore mountains, from ~$139. Request the front seat at check-in, and cancel free up to 24 hours ahead.
Ratings side by side
| Flight | Airline | From | GetYourGuide | Viator | Value score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Classic panorama | Harbour Air | ~$135 | 4.8 (2,124) | 4.7 (1,427) | 4.5 |
| City skyline | Seair | ~$139 | 4.8 (102) | 4.9 (32) | 4.7 |
| Extended panorama | Harbour Air | ~$221 | 4.7 (616) | 4.6 (178) | 4.4 |
| Glacier and alpine lake | Seair | ~$426 | 4.7 (19) | Not captured | 3.8 |
| To Victoria | Harbour Air | ~$353 | 4.8 (114) | 4.6 (197) | 4.5 |
| To Whistler | Harbour Air | ~$252 | 4.9 (17) | 4.9 (15) | 4.6 |
| Coastal mountain | Seair | ~$236 | 4.9 (11) | Not captured | 3.0 |
| Chatterbox Falls | Seair | ~$680 | No reviews yet | Operator reviews only | None yet |
Read the review counts before the stars. Harbour Air's classic has heard from more than 3,500 guests across the two sites, so its 4.8 is about as settled as a score gets. Seair's skyline flight edges ahead on Viator and on value from roughly 130 reviews, still a decent sample. The value column is GetYourGuide's sub-score, and it is where the pricier mountain flights slip.
Some things do not change with the airline. Every main flight, whichever company flies it, can be canceled at no charge until a day before on both booking sites. Both companies fly by sight, so a morning of fog or low cloud grounds a Beaver and a Twin Otter alike, and the operator then offers a new time or a refund under the listing's terms. Either one may put strangers in the empty seats of a small cabin. Harbour Air also asks every passenger to board with little or no help, which rules out guests who cannot step from the float into the cabin on their own.
Seair's two pricier mountain flights
The coastal mountain flight, from ~$236, spends about 30 minutes aloft over The Lions and up Howe Sound to the glacier-carved valleys of the Coast Mountains. The weak spot is cost, because that is a high fare for a half hour, and its 11 reviewers on GetYourGuide scored value at 3.0 of 5. On Viator it costs about $254 and averages 4.0 from six reviews, one of them a single star.
Seair's waterfall trip to Chatterbox Falls, from ~$680, flies about 1.5 hours up the Sunshine Coast to Princess Louisa Inlet and lands near a waterfall that only boats and floatplanes reach, with 30 minutes ashore. It carries the highest fare on this site and has no reviews on GetYourGuide yet, so you are trusting the operator rather than past guests. Glacier flights and lake landings covers both trips in more depth.
Who should book which
- First-timers after the classic route. Harbour Air's panorama, with the narration app and thousands of reviews behind it. Your first seaplane flight walks through check-in and boarding;
- Photographers. Seair's Beaver, where nobody gets an aisle and you can request the front;
- Families with a toddler. Harbour Air, which has a child fare for ages 2 to 11, while Seair does not fly children under 2. Seaplane tours with kids has the details;
- More time aloft without a big jump in price. Harbour Air's 45-minute extended panorama, from ~$221;
- Travelers heading on to the island or the mountains. Only Harbour Air flies to Victoria and Whistler among these listings;
- A glacier with a landing on an alpine lake. Seair's glacier flight, from ~$426, landing July to October.
To see every fare in one place, open what a Vancouver seaplane tour costs. If a helicopter is also on your list, seaplane, helicopter or FlyOver weighs the options.