Transport committee  It would be a pleasure.

Transport committee  I want to reiterate that Air Transat and the 5,000 employees of Air Transat are here to work with Parliament and with government to protect and enhance competition in Canada. For 37 years, Air Transat has been taking Canadians on their, mostly, leisure trips, on their international trips, and sometimes on their trips back home.

Transport committee  I'll get that for you, but remember, we never had a penny of debt up until—

Transport committee  We had $700 million in cash, in fact. The $700 million is gone, and we have $800 million that we owe to the Crown. It's enormous. It's a ratio that is too large, and it's one that we need to get under control to do what we need to do in this market.

Transport committee  That's absolutely the case, and I want to stress that it's not through any fault of our own, because we never had any before the pandemic. It is what it is, and we have to deal with it.

Transport committee  There were other models. We're very grateful for the support we got. It was purely debt. There was an investment made, half a billion dollars, in the equity of Air Canada. There are other models in Europe. There were massive investments and forgiveness. There are options on the table to make sure that, whether it's Transat or Porter or whichever carrier needs the support, we make it through that pandemic hole, and then we grow and enhance competition in the country.

Transport committee  Very briefly, given the time, we have historically been a point-to-point international carrier. You would catch an Air Transat flight in Quebec City, Montreal, Toronto, Halifax, Moncton or where have you, and you would fly to an international destination. The joint venture with Porter is a commercial agreement.

Transport committee  Again, very quickly, at a high level, Transat, Porter and others were closed for the pandemic and have hundreds of millions of dollars of debt. We have to look at those programs. They saved the companies. It worked. They saved jobs. However, these debts are accumulating and the interest on them is accumulating.

Transport committee  Not that I know of, because it's managed by the airports locally. We're good partners for the airports, but it's important, when addressing this issue, to ensure automatically that competitors have adequate access to airport infrastructure, especially airports serving hubs, such as Montreal and Toronto airports, for example.

Transport committee  As regards the model, the problem today is that carriers, Nav Canada and the airports are enormously indebted. The pandemic added a considerable amount of it. However, under the Canadian model, the biggest airports pay the federal government rents representing 12% of their revenues, and that money, amounting to $400 million or $500 million, goes into the federal government's coffers and isn't necessarily reinvested.

Transport committee  Thank you for your question. I have to say it wasn't easy. The pandemic was our biggest challenge. As I admitted in my opening remarks, we're now deeply in debt. If the pandemic hadn't occurred and we hadn't taken on all that debt, Air Transat would have been able to bring even more growth to the market.

Transport committee  That's a very important question, and it's also one of our concerns. Yes, Montreal and Toronto airports will be under construction for many years. It will be very important for our competitors and us to work with the airports to ensure adequate access to infrastructure such as gates and time slots.

Transport committee  Thank you for your question. In June, Air Transat will be launching a brand new flight to Africa, more specifically, to Marrakesh, in the Maghreb. We are also the only carrier that serves Haiti. It's very important for us to serve those destinations. As for rising prices, I did a bit of research and discovered that prices for international destinations in the markets we serve are roughly 20% to 30% lower than those of our competitors.

Transport committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thanks as well to the members of the committee for the invitation to appear today on behalf of my 5,000 Air Transat colleagues. Established in Montreal in 1987, Air Transat it is an affordable, people-centred, international holiday airline. Air Transat connects Canadians to some 54 international destinations in more than 25 countries in the Americas and Europe—and soon, Africa—from eight Canadian cities.