Mr. Chair, members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to present to you today.
As was mentioned, my name is Joyce Carter. I'm the chair of the Canadian Airports Council, but I'm also president and CEO of Halifax International Airport Authority. I'm joined today by RJ Steenstra. RJ is our vice-chair, as you mentioned, but also president and CEO of the Fort McMurray International Airport.
It's nice to see some familiar faces that have joined us today on the committee. Hello to everybody.
You might recognize behind me what is a very empty departures hall at Halifax Stanfield. We would normally see 11,000 travellers a day, and today, on average, we see just 200. So, certainly Canada's airports have seen a significant drop in their passenger traffic.
We are an essential part of our transportation network. Airports enable economic development in communities large and small, they facilitate trade and immigration and they bring visitors to Canada's $90-billion tourism sector. We connect Canada to the world.
Pre-COVID-19, Canada's airports supported nearly 200,000 jobs, resulting in $13 billion in wages and $7 billion in taxes to all levels of government.
Along with our airline partners, Canada's airports have seen a tremendous drop in traffic and revenue since the crisis began. In fact, in April, passenger traffic is down by more than 90% from normal levels. While we are preparing to restart some of our operations as travel restrictions get lifted, we don't expect recovery in our sector for many years. The passenger flights that are still operating today are quite empty. Some communities like Saint John, New Brunswick, and Prince Rupert, B.C., have lost scheduled passenger service altogether. You can appreciate this situation is not sustainable.
It's important to remember that airports must remain open to safely move goods and essential workers and facilitate medevac and other important services to Canada's economy and recovery. Airports moved quickly to help with the repatriation of Canadians, and then to reduce our operating expenses, including closing sections of our facilities, as you see behind me, and cutting wages and cutting staff. But many of our costs are fixed. Costs related to safety, security and runway maintenance, for example, cannot be cut in proportion to reduced traffic. In fact, while Canada's airports anticipate revenue for the year to be down almost 60% of what we expected to see, costs cannot be cut by nearly as much.
We want to thank the government for ground lease rent relief for the 22 airports that this is applicable for. This initiative is helping preserve some cash flow in 2020, particularly for Canada's eight busiest airports, which pay 95% of the rent. Airports must also continue to meet their capital debt obligations and, with few or no passengers, the airport improvement fee that typically covers these costs has vanished.
Managing airports is more than just about passengers. We must maintain buildings, runways, taxiways, lighting systems and other services that are all part of what makes airport operations safe and efficient. We must also conform to ongoing regulatory changes related to runway safety and accessible air travel, with price tags in excess of $350 million. We do not oppose these requirements, but we do wonder how we'll pay for them based on our current financial situation.
Boosted funding for smaller airports through the airports capital assistance program and new funding for safety and security through the national trade corridors fund would be helpful. But infrastructure funding is really a long-term solution to help airports recover over the coming years.
Airports are struggling now to cover their costs based on severely reduced revenues. Over the past few weeks, we have seen positive discussions with officials from transport and finance about a series of measures to help airports of all sizes sustain operations in the coming months. Permanently eliminating airport ground lease rent would be very helpful, given recovery of our industry is expected to be slow and arduous and there's a good chance we will see a second or third wave. This would allow airports to preserve cash, focus on operations during the recovery and pay off incremental debt acquired during the pandemic. Loan or bond guarantees and preferred payment designation for airport lenders would relieve the cash pressure caused by current debt obligations and allow airports to continue to borrow at favourable rates.
Additional debt and interest would have to be repaid, and airports are concerned about what this will do to future rates and charges to airlines and to our shared passengers. This is why interest-free, longer-term loans would provide much-needed cash without unduly burdening future customers who ultimately have to shoulder any additional costs placed on the industry.
The financial model for Canada's smallest airports is barely sustainable at the best of times, but for many rural and remote communities, these airports provide the primary means for access to people and goods. For smaller airports, a funding stream to cover essential operating expenses would be tremendously helpful so that they can continue to connect their communities to much-needed goods, workers, medical supplies and emergency services.
The health of the entire air transport system is not only essential to serving communities and Canadians through the crisis but also key to our economic recovery once we begin to reopen the economy.
Thank you for your time, and I look forward to the questions.