It's all about truth in advertising, really. That's what this is about.
I would like to point out that apparently Canadian carriers are now complying with American regulations—and have been for a couple of months now—in the advertising of prices. So we have a very strange situation in which an American law appears to be applying to our Canadian carriers when we can't seem to get our act together and design exactly the same set of regulations and set of laws.
Let me give you an example of why the carriers need to have a regulation much more quickly than a year from now. It has been four and a half years since the law was passed and we are still not anywhere near.... If you want to book a flight to Europe with Air Canada—or any of the carriers—which is not something on which we're competing with Dubai or Emirates airlines, Air Canada charges a ticket price. In addition to the ticket price, there are three surcharges Air Canada charges, which are really the fare.
The first of those is what's called a fuel surcharge, which many airlines picked up when fuel prices started to spike as the price of crude oil went up. However, this fuel surcharge—which makes one think that it's because of the variance in price of fuel—for a Toronto-to-London flight is $208 per economy class passenger and $309 for each business class passenger. In total, it's $77,000 for that flight. The total cost of fuel to take that plane to London is about $60,000.
So Air Canada is actually using a fuel surcharge to pay for more than its fuel. It's completely phony and completely unjustified. There is no indication whatsoever that this fuel surcharge is somehow related to the varying price of fuel. They're charging more than the actual cost of the fuel, which was at $2.94 a gallon in December. It takes about 20,000 gallons—maybe 25,000—to get to London.
The second of these charges is something called a Nav Canada surcharge. Now, what this really means is very confusing to the consumer. There are fees charged by Nav Canada, which are the costs of running security systems, and there's an actual per passenger fee that Nav Canada publishes.
But this, in Air Canada's view, is a $15 per passenger fee to Europe—it varies depending on where you are going—and it is supposed to be reflective of what Nav Canada charges to take off and land a plane from Pearson airport. So I did a little digging. I'm not sure how accurate my figures are, but they're not far off the mark. It's about $3,600 to take off a 777 from Pearson airport. These Nav Canada surcharges, though, net Air Canada about $5,200 on a plane to England. So again, they are charging more than what Nav Canada actually charges, and there is no reflection of the actual price.
The third surcharge is something called an insurance surcharge. I have no way of telling what it costs Air Canada to insure their fleet, nor would anybody, but they charge $3 per passenger. It's not reflective of any fee, of any government tax, or of anything.
The airlines are.... I won't say they're gouging the customers, because they're charging what it costs to get there, but they are engaging in very, very misleading practices, and they have been doing so for a considerable period of time. When they first instituted these fuel surcharges, they were in the order of $25. Now that it's $309.... And why is there a difference in a fuel surcharge, whether you're travelling business or economy? You're a passenger and weigh about the same.