Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the department for being present today.
We've had a couple of great meetings talking about airline competition in Canada. This study was kicked off because we saw the loss of Lynx, which was a competitor in our airline duopoly in Canada. Of course, 80% of it is controlled by Air Canada and WestJet.
Even though we don't have them here today, we had Flair here last time. I have spoken to Porter Airlines, which I believe is one of the greatest competitors in Canada and a Canadian success story. When we looked at barriers to competition, one thing that Porter focused on was real estate, which means slot usage and gate allocation. The problem we're seeing in Canada, specifically because we have only a few large airports, is that gates and real estate at the airports seem to be dominated, just as we have with airlines, by the big players.
I want to talk about capacity. I'll focus on Pearson, which is the largest airport in Canada. Pearson capacity, or what we call movements per hour, which refers to the number of aircraft landing and taking off, was restricted during the pandemic to 75 movements per hour versus prepandemic levels of 90. This was initially due to various resource constraints within the system. However, it is currently being suppressed by Nav Canada limitations. Rectifying this would allow Porter, as one of the competitors, a greater ability to operate at preferred times. It's also possible to have new airlines enter and compete.
What are we doing about increasing this limitation and competition at the gates as a whole?