Business
Here’s why your plane ticket is so expensive
From the Fraser Institute
By Alex Whalen and Jake Fuss
While the strike by WestJet mechanics lasted only a few days, many Canadian air travellers faced long delays and cancelled flights. More broadly, according to the Canadian Transportation Agency, customer complaints have hit an all-time high.
Yet many dissatisfied travellers likely don’t realize that Ottawa heavily contributes to their frustrations. Let’s look at the various ways federal policies and laws make air travel worse in Canada.
First, federal laws insulate Canada’s airlines from competition. Foreign airlines are subject to highly restrictive “cabotage” laws which, for example, dictate that foreign airlines cannot operate routes between Canadian cities. At the same time, foreign investors are forbidden from owning more than 49 per cent of Canadian airlines. By restricting international participation in the Canadian air travel market, these laws both deprive Canadian consumers of choice and insulate incumbent airlines from competition. When consumers have more choice, incumbents have a greater incentive to improve performance to keep pace with their competitors.
Second, a wide array of taxes and fees heavily influence the cost of airline tickets in Canada. Airport improvement fees, for example, average $32.20 per departing passenger at airports in Canada’s 10 largest markets. In contrast, airport improvement fees in the United States cannot exceed $4.50. And last year the Trudeau government increased the “air travellers security charge” by 32.85 per cent—this fee, which now ranges from $9.94 to $34.82 per flight, is higher in Canada than the U.S. across all flight categories. On the tax front, in addition to fuel taxes including the federal carbon tax, the federal excise tax on unleaded aviation gasoline in Canada is 10 cents per litre compared to 6.9 cents per litre in the U.S. And the U.S., unlike Canada, does not apply sales taxes to aviation fuel.
Third, air travel is a heavily regulated sector. Federal legislation generates thousands of provisions airlines must follow to operate legally in Canada. Of course, some regulation is necessary to ensure passenger safety, but each regulation adds administrative and compliance costs, which ultimately affect ticket prices. To lower the cost of air travel, the federal government should reduce the regulatory burden while maintaining safety standards.
Lastly, the ownership model of Canada’s airports results in a yearly transfer of rent to the federal government. The federal government used to own Canada’s national system of airports until they were transferred to private not-for-profit corporations in the early 1990s. However, these airports must still pay rent to the federal government—nearly half a billion dollars annually, according to the Canada Airports Council. As with the other examples listed above, these costs are ultimately passed on to consumers in the form of higher ticket prices.
While a precise estimate is difficult to obtain, various government policies, taxes and fees comprise a large share of the cost of each airline ticket sold in Canada. With complaints from travellers at all-time highs, the federal government should reduce the regulatory burden, increase competition, and lower fees and taxes. Policy reform for air travel in Canada is long overdue.
Authors:
Fr0m LifeSiteNews
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has been providing massive funds in the name of COVID despite the fact that Joe Biden admitted the ‘pandemic’ was over by 2022.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is withdrawing $11.4 billion in COVID funding to state and local health departments, non-government groups, and international recipients about two years after the U.S. government declared the COVID-19 “national emergency” over.
“The COVID-19 pandemic is over, and HHS will no longer waste billions of taxpayer dollars responding to a non-existent pandemic that Americans moved on from years ago,” HHS director of communications Andrew Nixon said in a statement, NBC News reported.
“HHS is prioritizing funding projects that will deliver on President Trump’s mandate to address our chronic disease epidemic and Make America Healthy Again.“
Despite the fact that former President Joe Biden admitted in 2022 that the COVID “pandemic” was over, Health and Human Services (HHS) has been continuing to allocate funds for COVID testing, “vaccines,” and “global COVID projects,” according to CDC talking points.
The funding cut comes as millions of dollars for other initiatives, including vaccine hesitancy research and HIV prevention, are slashed under new HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
HHS has made the greatest funding cutbacks government-wide, according to the Department of Government Efficiency’s website.
Dr. Robert Malone argued in 2023 that the only reason the Biden administration decided to end the national COVID “emergency” when it did is because of the congressional legislation seeking that end.
“The bottom line is that the imperial U.S. administrative state will never give up these unconstitutional powers until forced to do so,” Malone wrote.
For years, major corporations bragged about their wonderful Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs. They’re good for business and morally correct, they said. So why are they now cutting those programs?
Robby Starbuck says these programs once got a lot of buy-in, because people wanted to be nice! But DEI came to mean much more than just being nice.
Starbuck says what it looked like in practice was “crazy trainings” and “overtly racist hiring practices.” Now lots of people agree with him.
Companies actually take notice when Starbuck tells his many followers about their DEI programs. Often the programs get dropped.
That’s the power of free speech.
After 40+ years of reporting, I now understand the importance of limited government and personal freedom.
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Libertarian journalist John Stossel created Stossel TV to explain liberty and free markets to young people.
Prior to Stossel TV he hosted a show on Fox Business and co-anchored ABC’s primetime newsmagazine show, 20/20. Stossel’s economic programs have been adapted into teaching kits by a non-profit organization, “Stossel in the Classroom.” High school teachers in American public schools now use the videos to help educate their students on economics and economic freedom. They are seen by more than 12 million students every year.
Stossel has received 19 Emmy Awards and has been honored five times for excellence in consumer reporting by the National Press Club. Other honors include the George Polk Award for Outstanding Local Reporting and the George Foster Peabody Award.
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