[Maritime Q-Scout]

No.

The regulations, taxes, and small population over large landmass makes it nearly impossible to offer a "discount" air service.

I think there are a few factors that play into this.

1 - Let's look at the population, concentrated mostly in southern Ontario. You do have fairly cheap flights in the Toronto - Ottawa - Montréal corridor. Perhaps you can make a living doing that route, however that's Porter's bread and butter, so in a way we already have that. The other major centres of Edmonton-Calgary are too close to fly between efficiently, Calgary-Vancouver I would imagine WestJet has tied up fairly well.

2 - What do you fly? JetBlue for example runs a fleet of A320s and E190s. Not heavys by any stretch, but they aren't small either. JetBlue/SouthWest are the equivalents of WestJet. If they were operating domestically in Canada you'd be looking at about the same prices WestJet is offering as they run the same business model.

What if you were to go with smaller regional aircraft? Porter is running a fleet of Q400's, as will the new WestJet regional airline. Jazz is fazing out the CRJ's in favour of the Q400's. Here you're looking about about 75 seats per plane. That's still a large number to fly between cities and it would have to be full to operate at a profit/break even point.

3 - Places to fly. I'm not very knowledgeable on RyanAir, however from what I understand they fly into more obscure airports just outside of major centres. So if they were to operate in Canada their model would have a Toronto-Montréal flight fly not from Pearson to Trudeau but from Munroe to Mirabel. Canadian aren't too big on that concept, we're more creatures of habit.

Additionally, how many cities have alternate airports to fly in and out of? I would imagine Europe has a number due to WWII. But Canada? Is there an alternate airport that Calgary can use? I don't know what Edmonton's downtown airport can accommodate. Abbotsford does have WestJet already there, perhaps it's an option for Vancouver? If your aircraft is small enough (Q400 for example) then Toronto City Centre is an option if you can get the space. Mirabel is loathed by Montréalers, you'd basically be stuck with Trudeau. In the east Moncton, Halifax, Charlottetown, Sydney, Saint John, and Fredericton all only have one, no real alternate.

4 - Let's talk regional airports for a moment. Did you know Bathurst has the highest Airport Improvement Fee in the country? I'll give $5 to any born and raised Albertan than can point to Bathurst on a map. Sydney's is one of the highest as well. These fees are high as there is demand for passengers but not a huge volume to warrant the upgrades required for growth and upkeep. The Sydney-Halifax route is an absolute cash cow for Air Canada, mostly because it's not busy enough to warrant a mid-sized aircraft so WestJet hasn't touched it with it's 737-600, but does allow for five Dash 8-100 flights a day. It's small enough that Porter hasn't looked this way yet as most planning would start with Halifax and not to the small centre just north-east of it. If a local businessman wanted to start-up it'd cost the $30+million for a plane, plus all the other start-up costs, only to have Air Canada price match and run the little guy out of the market (I've seen it done).

4 - Let's talk Air Canada. They will price match any new competitor on routes they make money at, and will run the competition out of the market. WestJet kind of squeezed in with the Western image and has stuck around to grow and do well. Don't be fooled, WestJet wouldn't want anyone taking away their share of profitable routes either. Porter is an interesting case study, as they bought Toronto City Centre and then started their operations out of there. Somewhere that was highly marketable yet WestJet can't fly into, and Air Canada has trouble getting spots. They leverage that to expand throughout Ontario, Québec and into Eastern Canada.

5 - I'm kind of rambling at this point as I haven't had my morning coffee (and it's 2:30 my head is spinning). But I don't see anyone getting the startup capital, and working routes that currently exist and surviving. I don't see the regulations and taxes making airfare much cheaper than it already is. Heck it'll cost me about $650 to fly from Sydney to St. John's in August if I want to attend a friend's wedding. I don't see that happening.

Canada is too sparsely populated over too great a land mass. And where we aren't sparsely populated we live too close together to warrant air travel.

If a discount airline were to survive it would have to start all its routes at small regional airports (where it's cheaper to have an aircraft sit overnight) and then hit the major centres being on the ground as little as possible. It would make the hub philosophy very difficult to run. I just don't see it.

I hope this post is coherent, I'm going to get coffee rather than proof-read