We promote safe, sustainable and competitive air travel by advocating for the development of policies, regulations and legislation to foster a world-class transportation system. Collectively, our member airlines carry over 80 million passengers annually, directly employ over 60,000 people, and are a critical component of Canada's overall air transport and tourism sector, which supports more than 630,000 jobs.
Our industry is reeling from the pandemic. It is a crisis unlike any we have experienced before. We have approximately 90% of capacity eliminated from the marketplace. There are billions of dollars' worth of aircraft sitting parked on the ground. Thousands of employees have been impacted. Little revenue is coming in and carriers are burning through cash. There's also no clear path forward, no clear path ahead, as to when and how things may start slowly to improve.
A strong Canadian aviation sector is critical for our overall economic recovery. We support tens of thousands of jobs across every region of the country, in communities large and small, and across every sector of the economy.
Every job in every industry is, of course, important. The strategic significance of aviation lies in its well-established ability to support and promote economic growth across all sectors of the economy. Countries around the world have recognized this fact and have announced various initiatives over the past several weeks to support the sector, precisely because they will be relying on aviation to play a critical role in their economic recovery.
In Canada, our industry has been very appreciative of the broad support measures the government has introduced, in particular the wage subsidy support program, which our members are utilizing. Over the past several weeks the federal government has noted publicly that it is examining measures to support particularly hard-hit industries, including airlines. We are asking the government to move quickly and provide the industry with its plans.
It is important to note that as we entered 2020, after years of continuous investment in new aircraft, new routes and increased frequency to communities large and small across the country, our economy was more connected through aviation than it has ever been to communities across Canada and the world, with all the economic and social benefits that entails. This expansion required the successful investment of billions of dollars in capital, in employees, in operations and in suppliers in every region of the country.
We are in this crisis today not because of bad decisions by companies that have led to financial difficulty, but because of the economic chaos caused by the pandemic, as well as the closing of borders and the imposition of travel restrictions. Aviation is hit particularly hard, as the government has noted, because it is very capital-intensive and is of course also a highly regulated business for obvious safety and operational reasons.
As we've seen demonstrated by our G7 partners, as well as our trading partners around the world, the industry will not get through this unprecedented crisis without government involvement.
To close, our members are focused on working with the government and this parliamentary committee to support a process that allows us to begin moving back to what aviation is meant to do: support the employment of hundreds of thousands of Canadians across the country in communities large and small; support our economic growth and connectivity, not just within Canada but to the world; and aggressively support our overall recovery from the pandemic.
Thank you for the opportunity to appear. I look forward to your questions.