RE: If the Feds hadn't put millions into AC Where in the world do you get this idea that the federal government has put money into Air Canada - Air Canada was privatized in 1989 and the money from the IPO sale went back to the federal government. On top of this Air Canada has it's main base at the most expensive airport in the entire world, yes, that's right, it costs more to land and use Pearson than any airport in the world - do the research. The reason why Pearson is so expensive is because the federal governnment bleeds the GTAA (and other major airport authorities) for huge sums of money through the Airport Rents it charges and these costs are passed on to the airlines. Flying from Buffalo or Bellingham isn't cheaper because the fares are less - it's because the taxes are less, the fuel costs less and the airports are cheaper. Allow foreign airlines to fly from Pearson and the fares would be almost exactly the same as now and you are dreaming if you think opening the country to foreign airlines will result in a better deal for Canadians than the current system. The foreign carriers might pick up all the transborder routes but if you wanted to travel from St John's to Montreal - forget it, or Edmonton to Toronto - you're going to connect through Minneapolis.
Another little gem for Air Canada is that the feds use it as an instrument of public policy (with no cost recovery allowed) - fully bi-lingual service (check the draconian rulings from the Official Language Commission), Air Canada is required to keep maintenance bases in Quebec, Mississauga and Winnipeg and it's head office in Montreal though the ACPPA - this is a huge cost only applies to Air Canada. These things might be good for the country but they are bad for the corp. I'm not a francophone so it wouldn't affect me personally but do you think an Americam airline would provide any french service other than training their flight attendants to play the pre-recorded french announcement? Perhaps the federal government should give AC an tax break to offset these public service costs to put it on an equal footing with other airlines, perhaps the feds should drop the airport rents to make the airports more competatiive?
Oh yeah, I forgot about the "Club Loan" from 2009 - this little beauty saw ACE lend AC back $150 million of it's own money, the federal government lend AC $100 million and a few other creditors lend money - the rate for this loan was 12% - 12%! This happened while the current bank rate was something like 2%. Every penny of this money was paid back in full and early to boot. So enough this the BS about supporting Air Canada because it's actuall the other way 'round.