Thank you for the question.
The subject is quite complex. But the cost of air tickets really is a problem, especially for airports close to the border.
On that, on the revenue side, as I've said, we've put forward a couple of recommendations allowing airports to be a little more creative and inventive in terms of how they develop their businesses. The formula for rent is charged on gross revenue, which means that if there's a business line with fairly thin margins, they may have to pay as much as 12% in rent on any revenue they earn, while another organization across the street that's not an airport authority would not have to pay it. They have to weigh that.
Certainly, looking at the airport rent formula there would be very helpful. We've said to eliminate it for airports. At the very least, eliminate airport rents for airports with fewer than three million passengers. That would be all of them but the large eight. I think it would only affect about $20 million, but it would greatly benefit those airports.
For the larger airports, where we're seeing such strong growth, the bigger concern, honestly, is around investment and services. The money is coming out of the industry, and what we're saying is let's make sure that gets back into supporting the services travellers need. The cost of travel is a big priority for the government, but so is the traveller experience. We're having the right conversations on CATSA, for example. That's good, but it needs to come to fruition. CATSA needs to be adequately funded next year.
The CBSA is working very well with airports to mitigate the problems that we saw in Montreal in particular last year, but Toronto is still having some serious problems, and I have a report here. Over a two-week period in August, 73 aircraft were held at the gate with travellers kept on board because the customs hall was too full. It's the kind of tarmac delay that, in other areas, we're trying to mitigate.
Certainly, for the largest airports, it's less about reducing the costs and more about making sure the services are adequately funded so we can manage that growth.