Quote:
Originally Posted by Derek Sutton
So the federal government sets all the fees and fianances, bails out the largest airline in the country. So we will never get another airline.
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The federal government sets fees and taxes, not really any different from other industries. Truckers have to pay tolls, watch weight restrictions, every industry has to pay taxes.
Finances are a company thing. How a company is structured isn't a government thing, but a corporation thing. WestJet is a very Very VERY different structure from Air Canada which is complete different from Porter.
The bar to entry into the industry isn't the government, and fees, it's the fact that airplanes are fataing expensive, and guys like Ryan Coke won't fly them for free. Your costs outside of the governmental costs are HUGE. If anything, the government costs are passed directly into the consumer.
Competition is very tight in Canada. Huge landmass, small population, massive costs, it's not easy to start an airline and make a go of things. Heck look at aviation nerd Ken Rowe. Multimillionaire (billionaire?) loves the airline industry, yet CanJet wasn't successful as a daily scheduled operator, even with his money and passion behind the company. Why? Because it's a frackin' horrible industry to be in.
If you're blaming AIFs and fuel-surcharges on your company's inability to compete, you were never going to succeed.
As for the government bailouts. Air Canada does more than shuttle people from one Canadian city to another. I want to see them compete and survive (there's another thread on this very topic) but if they just folded the loss of their cargo, mail, international and regional service would cripple the country. Yes, someone (several) would eventually take their place, but the cost just isn't worth it. WestJet isn't ready (nor do they want to) to take over for Air Canada, and Porter isn't ready to take over for Air Canada Express. Not by a long shot. There's literally no one ready to fill in for Air Canada's international flights (unless you want to have foreign operators dictating Canadian transportation policy) and no one with the capacity ready to take over for Air Canada Cargo.
We think bailout or let Air Canada die, we think "we'll just hop on a WestJet or Porter flight, or maybe Sunwing & CanJet will resume daily scheduled service" but there's more to it than that.