That is an excellent point and those are excellent questions.
A broad assessment of airfares in markets that are considered monopolistic or don't have many of the nation's airlines there would be helpful. I do know that in our market there are a host of challenges, which you outlined, not the least of which can be pricing. Pricing can be an issue. That said, for the summer there's some good pricing in the market.
In a free market, the largest contributor to pricing is not going to be the stage length of the flight or any of those things. It's going to be the level of competition. It's not unlike a town with only one grocery store, where I expect that a head of lettuce is going to come at a premium. Really, it becomes incumbent upon these smaller communities to attract and retain competition in the market, which is really down to consumer preference and choice.
Some have been successful. We had competition in the market too. When WestJet had a presence here, I think the airfares came down almost 35%. Porter has the same effect. The issue right now is there are too many small airports courting and chasing carriers with a finite capacity for expansion. In some cases, too few pilots or airplanes are actually coming into new markets.
It's very much a tricky situation. I think it goes back to a point made previously around incentive or subsidy. That would be a shared effort among, perhaps, the province, country and airport authority, which can help de-risk airlines coming to new markets. Ultimately, a lot of them don't make money in the first year in a new market. If we could take some of the risk out of it and allow them to build traffic, I think they can become a fixture in the market. Certainly, that's what needs to happen. If we want to talk about ticket pricing, certainly fees and ancillary things are contributory, but competition is ultimately what will bring down airfare.