The real air rage is airfares

It’s been five years since U.S. low-cost airline JetBlue Airways applied for, and received, a licence to fly to Canadian cities like Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. And yet there has yet to be a single JetBlue flight venturing north of the border. Why? “It’s hard to stimulate travel with low fares while operating in a high-cost environment,” says airline spokesperson Allison Steinberg.

JetBlue isn’t the only airline that says flying in Canada is too expensive. Over the years, a host of foreign airlines, from Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific and Israel’s El Al to Virgin America and Frontier Airlines, have either shelved expansion plans or stopped flying to Canada altogether because of a panoply of aviation taxes and fees in this country, which have contributed to airfares that are, on average, up to $120 more expensive than in the United States, according to some estimates. When coupled with a soaring loonie, the result is an increasingly uncompetitive industry. “There has been a significant increase in airfares,” says Fred Lazar, an associate professor of economics at York University. “Now fuel prices have driven that somewhat, but so too have operating costs at airports.” For instance, last year it cost US$20,885 to land an Airbus A330 at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport, among the world’s most expensive airports, according to data provided by the International Air Transport Association (IATA). By contrast, it cost just US$12,367 to land the same plane at Tokyo’s Narita International Airport and US$13,114 at Frankfurt International Airport.