Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I have the same curiosity. Ms. Bento and I had a little sidebar conversation about these aluminum runways. It sounds like something that, over the long-term, holds a lot of promise.
This study is about affordability, particularly in rural and remote communities. It feels like a bit of a tough issue to get a real handle on, because we're talking about private companies that are operating in our communities and providing a vital service for people. We're talking about airports, which are often run by municipalities, that struggle to maintain their operations using the current revenue model. For the passengers, they feel like they're paying an exorbitant amount to fly in and out of rural communities.
Now, we've heard the argument about fees and charges, and the international comparisons, etc., but we're talking about a private market. In some cases, there's very little competition, which is one of the key mechanisms we rely on in a market-based economy to drive down prices. We also don't have a line of sight on how the airline sets its prices. This is not transparent to passengers, so passengers are getting on planes, paying exorbitant amounts and then seeing that the company they're flying with is making billions of dollars of profit. You can get rid of the fees and charges, but what's to prevent the company, in the absence of competition, from simply raising the price back up to what it used to be?
This is the question, I think, for a lot of people. How do they know that the affordability and the cost savings to airlines are being passed on to them in the price of the ticket, when they see that some of these companies are very profitable and are making that money on the backs of customers in rural areas, who are paying exorbitant ticket prices? How do we build that level of trust if the government were to consider the proposals that were brought forward? How should passengers trust that the airlines are passing on those savings?
I ask Mr. Morrison and Mr. McKenna. I think they're probably best positioned to respond to that.