Edmonton International Airport has been part of my life for a surprisingly long time.
When I was a university student living in Edmonton, this was the airport I used whenever I flew home to visit my parents, first on Vancouver Island and later in Fredericton after they moved east. It was also where I boarded what I consider my first proper international trip: Korea and Japan. I know, the United States technically counts as international travel, but in my head it never felt like the trip that started everything.
Korea and Japan did.
That journey helped spark the travel bug that eventually led to my teaching years in Korea, backpacking around Southeast Asia and, well, the rather travel-heavy life I’ve had ever since.
Back then, my airport routine was simple: I took a shuttle between Edmonton and the airport. Many times.
Edmonton has changed a lot since those university days, and so has the airport transfer. The old shuttle routine I remember is not the normal downtown option today. If you’re arriving at YEG now, your realistic choices are public transit, taxi, rideshare or a rental car.
There’s also one important geographic reality to understand immediately: Edmonton International Airport is roughly 30 kilometres south of downtown Edmonton. You are not landing on the edge of the city centre and hopping on a five-minute train.
The cheapest current option is Route 747 plus the LRT. The easiest is a taxi or rideshare. Which one makes sense depends heavily on how many people you’re travelling with, how much luggage you’re dragging around and what time your flight lands.
Edmonton Airport to Downtown: The Quick Comparison
| Option | Current cost | Approximate time | Transfers | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Route 747 + LRT | About C$9 with Arc/contactless or C$9.75 cash | Roughly 1 hour with a decent connection, potentially longer with waiting | 1 | Solo travellers and budget trips |
| Taxi | C$62 flat rate to downtown | Around 30 minutes in normal traffic | None | Groups, luggage, easiest arrival |
| Uber or Lyft | Variable | Around 30 minutes depending on traffic | None | Direct transport with app pricing |
| Rental car | Variable | Around 30 minutes to downtown | None | Trips continuing beyond Edmonton |
The biggest thing to understand is that Route 747 does not go downtown.
It connects Edmonton International Airport with Century Park in south Edmonton. From there, you transfer to the Capital Line LRT for the final ride into the centre.
That distinction gets glossed over far too easily.
Route 747 + LRT: The Cheapest Way From Edmonton Airport to Downtown
If I were arriving alone, travelling fairly light and trying to keep costs down, this is the option I’d choose.
The journey is:
YEG → Route 747 → Century Park → Capital Line LRT → downtown Edmonton
There is nothing particularly difficult about it. It just isn’t direct.
Catching Route 747 at Edmonton Airport
Route 747 boards outside Door 8 on the Arrivals level at YEG.
The bus heads north from the airport toward Century Park Transit Centre, making a couple of intermediate stops around the airport commercial area before reaching Edmonton’s LRT network.
The current airport fare is C$6 per person each way.
You can pay with Arc, physical or digital credit/debit, an Arc airport ticket or cash. If you need to sort out your fare after arriving, there is a Parking and Ground Transportation counter between Doors 5 and 7.
Route 747 currently operates within a published window of approximately 4:10 a.m. to 12:30 a.m., with buses generally running every 30 to 60 minutes.
That frequency is worth paying attention to.
The actual transport is not horrendously slow. The annoying scenario is walking out of baggage claim shortly after a bus has left and realizing you’ve just added a potentially substantial wait before the journey has even begun.
I would check the current Route 747 schedule close to your trip, especially if your flight lands early in the morning or late at night.
Century Park to Downtown on the LRT
Century Park is where Route 747 ends and the second half begins.
From there, take the Capital Line toward Clareview.
Several stations work for central Edmonton depending on where you’re staying, including:
- Government Centre
- Corona
- Bay/Enterprise Square
- Central
- Churchill
This part of the journey is generally easier because LRT service is more frequent than Route 747.
If your accommodation is still undecided, you can compare current downtown Edmonton hotels before deciding which station makes the most sense for your stay.
Audrey and I used Edmonton’s buses and LRT extensively when we returned to the city, and I was genuinely impressed by how much the network had expanded compared with what I remembered from living here. On our busiest sightseeing day we deliberately used both rail and bus because we were trying to save our legs.
Edmonton is sprawling enough that this matters.
But the airport journey adds another layer because you’re doing it with whatever you’ve dragged off the luggage carousel.
What the Public Transit Trip Actually Costs
The slightly sneaky bit is that the C$6 airport fare does not include your onward regular ETS journey from Century Park.
Current regular Edmonton transit costs are:
- C$3 with Arc or contactless credit/debit
- C$3.75 with cash
That means an adult starting without another transit product is looking at roughly:
- C$9 total with Arc or contactless
- C$9.75 total if paying both portions in cash
For a solo traveller, that is an enormous saving over a taxi.
For two people, transit still wins comfortably.
Once you start filling a taxi with four adults, the arithmetic gets more interesting.
Is Route 747 Practical With Luggage?
Yes, within reason.
Route 747 has luggage racks, and there isn’t a stated passenger luggage-count limit. Rack space is first come, first served, and you need to manage your own bags. Luggage cannot be left sitting in the aisle.
The bus itself isn’t what would concern me. It’s the transfer at Century Park.
If I’ve got one suitcase and a backpack, no big deal.
If Audrey and I are moving around with several suitcases, carry-ons and a stroller, suddenly I’m much less interested in proving how economical I can be.
There is a point where saving money starts costing you in annoyance.
Route 747 uses accessible low-floor buses, and Edmonton’s LRT system has accessible stations, but passengers with specific mobility needs should still check current accessibility information before travelling. A bus-to-train transfer is still a transfer even when both parts are accessible.
Taxi From Edmonton Airport to Downtown
A taxi is the cleanest option if you don’t want to think about any of this.
Collect your bags. Walk outside. Get in. Arrive at your hotel.
YEG currently publishes a C$62 flat taxi fare to downtown Edmonton, and taxis pick up outside Door 9 on the Arrivals level.
The airport describes downtown as typically around a 30-minute drive, though Edmonton traffic gets a vote.
For one person, C$62 versus roughly C$9 on public transit is a massive difference.
For four adults, it isn’t.
Split four ways, that C$62 fare becomes C$15.50 each.
Four adults taking transit at roughly C$9 apiece would spend around C$36 combined. You are essentially paying C$26 extra for the entire group to skip the bus wait, avoid the LRT transfer, keep everybody’s luggage together and get dropped at the door.
That is a very different calculation from “taxi expensive, bus cheap.”
If there are four of us with bags after a long flight, I’m paying the extra C$26.
Every time.
Accessible taxi vehicles can also be arranged in advance through the airport transportation system if required.
Uber and Lyft From YEG
Uber and Lyft also operate at Edmonton International Airport.
Rideshare pickups currently use Door 10 on the Arrivals level, separate from the regular taxi area.
Unlike the taxi’s published downtown flat rate, rideshare prices move around. There is no dependable fixed Uber fare that I would use for trip budgeting.
Open the app when you’re travelling and compare the live fare.
If Uber or Lyft comes in comfortably below the taxi price, great. If surge pricing sends it sailing past C$62, the flat-rate taxi suddenly becomes rather appealing.
Either way, the practical advantage is identical: you avoid the Century Park transfer and go straight to your accommodation.
What Happened to the Edmonton Airport Shuttle?
This is the part that feels strange to me because the airport transfer I remember from my Edmonton years was the shuttle.
That was my standard routine between the city and YEG.
I’d take it heading out to see my parents. I’d take it coming back. And it was part of the ritual when I headed off on those increasingly ambitious trips that eventually changed the direction of my life.
If you knew Edmonton in that era, searching for “airport shuttle” today feels completely natural.
But I wouldn’t arrive now assuming there is a straightforward downtown shuttle equivalent waiting to recreate that old routine.
Current airport hotel shuttles primarily serve participating properties around Nisku and Leduc, near YEG rather than central Edmonton.
You’ll also find longer-distance and intercity transportation services operating around the airport, but those are different products. Some online route planners can make nearby Leduc bus stops look suspiciously like airport-terminal services when they aren’t.
For a normal YEG-to-downtown trip today, I would focus on three realistic choices:
Route 747 + LRT, taxi or rideshare.
My old shuttle days are now more useful as Edmonton nostalgia than current transport advice.
Should You Rent a Car at Edmonton Airport?
Rental cars are available directly at YEG, with pickup facilities on the ground level of the parkade outside Door 8.
I wouldn’t rent one purely because I needed to travel 30 kilometres into downtown.
If all I needed was transportation to a downtown hotel, paying C$62 for a taxi is a much simpler proposition than taking on a rental agreement, driving into the city and then having a car to deal with afterward.
But Edmonton is a big, spread-out city, and Alberta is even bigger.
If you’re landing at YEG and immediately beginning a driving itinerary—or you already know you’re going to need a vehicle throughout your Edmonton stay—then airport pickup makes perfect sense. You land, collect the car and start the road portion of the trip immediately. In that situation, you can compare current car rentals at Edmonton International Airport rather than paying for a separate ride into the city first.
Audrey and I found Edmonton’s buses and LRT genuinely useful during our return visit, but Edmonton is also geographically spread out. Whether a car makes sense for the rest of your trip is a different question from whether you need one simply to escape the airport.
So, What’s the Best Way From Edmonton Airport to Downtown?
For me, the decision breaks down pretty cleanly.
Travelling solo and light? Route 747 plus the LRT. At roughly C$9 with contactless payment, I’d save the money.
A couple without much luggage? I’d probably still take transit unless our flight landed at an awkward time.
Three or four adults? Check the taxi maths. Once C$62 is divided between several people, the price premium for direct transportation shrinks dramatically.
Loaded with luggage, a stroller or tired kids? I would lean taxi or rideshare. There are moments when transferring from a bus to a train stops feeling thrifty and starts feeling like punishment.
Landing late? Check the Route 747 timetable before assuming public transit will work. Taxi and rideshare are the safer fallback once you’re pushing outside its operating window.
Starting a bigger Alberta road trip? Pick up the rental car at YEG and get on with it. You can check YEG rental-car options for your travel dates if the vehicle has a purpose beyond the airport transfer itself.
I’ve travelled between Edmonton and this airport enough times over the years that the airport itself carries a weird amount of personal history for me—from university flights home to the trip to Korea and Japan that helped set my future life in motion.
The transport has changed.
The basic calculation hasn’t: after getting off a plane, you’re balancing money against hassle.
These days, I’d happily take Route 747 and the LRT by myself. Put me in a group with Audrey, luggage piled around us and enough people to split a C$62 taxi?
I’m taking the car.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the cheapest way to get from Edmonton Airport to downtown?
Route 747 plus the LRT is the cheapest option in the article. At current fares, an adult starting without another transit product pays about C$9 with Arc or contactless payment, or about C$9.75 when paying both portions in cash.
Does Route 747 go directly to downtown Edmonton?
No. Route 747 runs from Edmonton International Airport to Century Park in south Edmonton. From Century Park, you transfer to the Capital Line toward Clareview and continue to a downtown station such as Government Centre, Corona, Bay/Enterprise Square, Central or Churchill.
How long does it take to get from Edmonton Airport to downtown?
Public transit can take roughly an hour when the Route 747 and LRT connections line up well, but waiting can add time because Route 747 generally runs every 30 to 60 minutes. A taxi or rideshare is typically around a 30-minute drive in normal traffic.
How much is a taxi from Edmonton Airport to downtown?
YEG currently publishes a C$62 flat taxi fare to downtown Edmonton. Taxis pick up outside Door 9 on the Arrivals level, making this the most predictable direct option in the article.
Is Route 747 practical with luggage?
Yes, within reason. Route 747 has luggage racks, but space is first come, first served and you need to handle your own bags. The bigger hassle is transferring from the bus to the LRT at Century Park when you are carrying several pieces of luggage.
Which Edmonton Airport transfer would I choose?
Travelling solo and light, I would take Route 747 plus the LRT and save the money. With several adults, lots of luggage or a stroller, I would lean toward a taxi or rideshare. If the trip continues as an Alberta road trip, picking up a rental car at YEG makes more sense.
This guide is also available in Spanish. [Leé la versión en castellano: Cómo llegar del Aeropuerto de Edmonton al centro]
This article contains affiliate links. If you book through one of these links, I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.