Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Welcome to our guests today.
We all pay close attention to problems in the air industry, particularly in rural Canada. When you fly in and out of Atlantic Canada, as I do—and Mr. Bachrach flies into rural areas in his riding as well—you realize that there are a lot of problems that we need to address. Whether it's accessibility or the cost of airline tickets and so on, it's really challenging.
In Atlantic Canada, for example, if you're flying into St. John's, it's much better in terms of accessibility, but if you're flying into Gander, Deer Lake or some of the smaller airports, it's really difficult getting a flight, first of all. Second, the cost is extremely high compared to some other flights that you would do.
Looking at these airlines, you mentioned the merger earlier. Wasn't there an issue with Air Canada and Air Transat where there was a proposed merger that got blocked?