[Sidney Crosby's Hat]

Originally Posted by Acey

Denver does 4x Calgary's passenger count annually. It's a bit unique in that it was built from scratch in 1995, which is obviously very new for a major world airport. Feds chipped in half a billion. The "someone" paying for DEN are passengers through PFC aka passenger facility charge, which was $10 USD if I remember correctly the last time I flew DEN-LAX, is quite a bit less than YYC's $35.

The other thing that happens at airports in the US is that the airlines pay for stuff. United spent $2.5B on Terminal B at Houston. American will dump $4B into a new terminal at Dallas. YYC's new terminal, whose primary user is WestJet, was about $2 billion. Who paid for it? YYC did, by assuming massive debt and charging you $35 per originating ticket. Canadian airlines pay 4x the fuel tax that US airlines do, double the landing fees, and double the taxes on a few other things.

At first glance it seems like the Canadian government wants you to stay home, but in fact they want you to fly because it's a goldmine of revenue for them. As I said earlier, if an airline charges how much the public thinks domestic airfare should cost in Canada... they simply go bankrupt. There's a loooong list of dead Canadian airlines to prove it.

It's also cursed:

https://www.travelandleisure.com/air...iracy-theories