Many of these airports have smaller traffic volumes today, so anything that improves the cost structure for industry is an improvement for everyone across the board.
Our members today actually don't include some of those airports you referred to. We have small airports like Sudbury, Stephenville, and Deer Lake, but in Quebec we have only Quebec City.
Our airports generally think of themselves as a system, so we're at a point where actually the larger airports are helping out the smaller airports and the smaller airports are helping out the larger airports, because they realize, for example, if you can't get through CATSA in a timely manner in Toronto, then that affects everybody downstream, because those passengers ultimately are going to be travelling through the major hubs. Improving the hubs can actually do a lot for airports of all sizes.
Airports of all sizes are very active in marketing their communities. Our parent organization in the United States is part of an international network of airports, and we actually hold forums at which airports are able to meet with air carriers so that they can promote themselves. We've seen growth in domestic and international routes from airports that might not have had international connections 10 or 20 years ago.
I can't leave this topic, though, without pointing to my colleagues in southern Ontario at Toronto's Pearson. Even though billions of dollars were invested in Toronto in the 1990s to build up that airport and we've grown it to over 41 million passengers last year, they're actually looking down the road and realizing that they're going to hit capacity, so Toronto Pearson is actually working with airports in the southern Ontario region on how to handle that as they approach capacity. They're looking at whether airports can specialize in different types of activity, for example. That's an area of work that is fairly new. That's been under way for a couple of years, and I think it will present a good model, going forward, of how airports can work within their region.
Another good example is in Atlantic Canada, where the Atlantic Canada Airports Association works together on a lot of files, including air service development. They travel overseas together and they promote the region at conferences like the ones my organization holds.
The good thing about airports is that because they are not-for-profit businesses, there is a great community spirit of working together and learning from each other, and you see a lot of collaboration in our industry today. I'm proud of that.