Thank you for the question.
It's essential. I'm from the same part of the world that you are. I'm from the western coast of Newfoundland. My community is Stephenville, which saw steady declines in air service over the years, whereas Deer Lake has had it build up. You can see the difference in terms of whether you can get there or not, and whether you need to connect multiple times or not.
We saw tremendous investment into all parts of Canada by our air carrier partners over the last 10 years, and Atlantic Canada saw a lot of that, with new air carriers coming into the market, the introduction of WestJet and the expansion of Porter. All of this increased competition increased connectivity, and it brought fares down. We saw this around the country.
It is so important for these communities. They spent a decade building up those services. When we saw air traffic in the region plummet to levels that my colleague in Deer Lake says she hasn't seen since the year I was born, it was devastating. It's absolutely devastating. When a community loses service.... If you think it's difficult to get a customer back when you've lost them, it's just as difficult to get an air carrier and an air service back when you've lost them.
