Transport Committee on Dec. 8th, 2020

[Ian Jack]

I agree with Mr. Lukács. We have to deal with both of these things. We do have negotiations under way with the carriers to ensure that their policies on financial needs allow them to carry on. We need to get consumer confidence back up.

A number of us have observed that there are economic, cultural and social benefits from having a viable airline industry in this country. We need to ensure that is the case, but we also need to make sure that consumers aren't the ones funding this, because they paid for a service they never received. The airlines made off with their money.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Sparling, as an industry representative could you comment on that in terms of the future of the industry and your airline?

[Joseph Sparling]

You spoke of international carriers. They've been hardest hit. As a country we need to do all that we can to make sure that our carriers that fly internationally are protected and are able to compete with foreign air carriers who are often funded by their governments. That means doing all that we can to drive business.

For people travelling internationally on Canadian carriers, we should do all that we can to make the cost structure of our Canadian air carriers competitive with those of other countries, which are sometimes subsidizing their airlines. This might might include such things as taking over, at least temporarily, some of the infrastructure costs that Canadian carriers are bearing, the excise tax on fuel, the Nav and airport fees. Things like that will make the cost structure of Canadian air carriers more in line with those of foreign air carriers.

Vis-a-vis the Americans, generally speaking, U.S. carriers have about a 20% cost advantage over Canadian carriers. We could do a lot to help our industry if we were to level the playing field a bit in that regard.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Mr. Sparling and Mr. Bittle.

Thank you to all of the witnesses, and for all of the questions from all parties.

One of the satisfying parts of today's meeting was that not only did we talk about the airlines, but also about the supply chain, including travel agents and others who have been affected by the pandemic and many of the challenges we've been facing for the past year.

The meeting is adjourned.