Former Air Canada COO speaks on high flight costs, lack of direct routes in the Maritimes

Anyone who has been to Maritime airports in recent months has likely noticed one common thing: most of them are empty.

As the cost of flying continues to rise and the region continues to lose direct flight routes, some people are left wondering what the future of travel in our region will look like.

Former chief operating officer with Air Canada Duncan Dee said while some North America places like New York are seeing overcrowding and no lack of flights in their airports, other more rural areas are not so lucky.

“This is a story of the haves and the have-nots and what we’re seeing in Canada is many more have-nots in terms of air service to their communities,” said Dee in an interview with CTV News Atlantic’s Todd Battis on Tuesday.

Dee said when a flight route is lost, it’s unlikely it will return to the previous rate as many smaller routes were serviced by smaller aircrafts which have since been discontinued.

“If you take a look at Moncton to Halifax for example, that was served by Beach 1900, which was an aircraft with only 18 seats. Now the smallest aircraft at Air Canada, which was the airline that operated that route, is a 78-seat aircraft, so four times larger than the aircraft that is no longer being used,” said Dee.

“When you’ve got that imbalance between the number of seats an airline is operating and the size of the markets they are looking to operating in, it’s simply impossible to say fly three 78-seat aircraft between Moncton and Halifax a day like you used to do with an 18-seat aircraft.”

Dee says many of the smaller markets will continue to struggle getting flights as the cost of flying continues to rise.

“You’d have to charge ridiculous rates to make those small routes work because there’s just so few travelers that fly on those routes,” he said.

“Throughout North America over the last few years we’ve seen the retirement of the smaller aircraft, including the 50-seat Canadair regional jets in favour of larger aircraft. There’s an economic reason for that as we see pilot costs in particular climb, as we see fuel prices persist in the $80-to-$100 per barrel range. It becomes extremely difficult for airlines to offer seats in a price competitive way for many of these small markets.”

While costs are high, Dee notes how Canadian airports can charge higher fees than American airports, therefore increasing financial strain on travelers.

“At a U.S. airport like New York, each traveler pays maximum $4.50 to use the airport, the airport fee. In Canada, travelers can pay upwards of $45-to-$50. Bathurst Airport in New Brunswick charges $45 to every single traveler that sets foot in that airport,” said Dee.

“We’re talking about airports that are overbuilt in the country that costs a lot of money, but in Canada we also have this user pay model which basically means that travelers, air travelers shoulder 100 per cent of the costs of the air transportation infrastructure in this country. That’s something that no other country on the planet does.”

Dee adds there’s a lack of air transportation structure for small and remote communities, in a way locking them off from everywhere else.

“In Canada, we kind of throw small communities to the wolves and it’s basically up to them to figure out how to get air services to those areas of the country,” he said.

“Businesses around the country and across the world look at air access as a bare minimum for them to establish themselves in any community they enter.”