Ever since I moved to Western Canada, I’ve had a yearly ritual that has been as predictable as the sequence of the seasons, themselves: my annual scramble to find the best deal on a flight back home, to the Maritimes, for the holidays.
Every year, this has proven to be a labyrinthine challenge, given how the odds are already stacked against me, looking for a cheap flight during one of the busiest times of the year for flying.
I’ve watched, with growing consternation, how increasingly difficult it is not to crack four figures to pay for a flight home, with the cost of flights continually rising. I’ve laboured to pack smaller and smaller pieces of luggage, trying to elude the climbing costs of bringing really, anything onto a plane these days.
So when I found out about what WestJet and Air Canada have been caused of doing in 2014, I’m sure I’m not the only one who saw a bit of red. In Regina, a class action law suit was just filed in the Court of Queen’s Bench against both companies for allegedly colluding to increase fees for checked bags, providing nothing more for customers.
Now, before anyone accuses me of being paranoid, let’s not forget that Air Canada’s decision to impose an additional $25 fee on the first piece of checked luggage came three days after WestJet imposed the same fee.
Air Canada’s PR people insisted, in response to allegations that they colluded with WestJet, that they just followed a trend in the market, and it’s not like one company responding to another, trying to stay competitive is completely out of the realm of possibility. That could very well be be the case; just regular competition.
But, speaking of competition, this lawsuit debacle really just gets us down to the heart of the bigger, far more difficult to resolve problem in Canada, when it comes to its airline offerings. The problem is the fact that we have to use such such a loose definition of the word “competition” when talking about Canada’s airline business. Competition is something our airline industry lacks, and we’re hurting for it. Australia gives right of establishment to numerous foreign airlines, which leads to lower fares and more places to fly. It’s been proven by all sorts of comparative studies that Canadians pay vastly more for similar flights, compared to U.S. citizens with their many options when it comes to flying.
Back in 2013, the Consumer’s Association of Canada said the Canadian airline industry needs to let in more foreign airlines to increase competition and choice for people flying in Canada. People polled by the group showed an overwhelming majority support of introducing more competition into the Canadian airline industry, citing the potential for lower costs and more travel options.
Three years later, we’ve still only got two expensive major national airlines, both facing a lawsuit, and NewLeaf. NewLeaf is decent in my books, being an upstart air service with the very honourable intention of providing (absolutely necessary) competition. It focuses on flying to and from second-tier airports to take advantage of lower landing fees to provide a lower-cost alternative. Cool. Only problem is it’s facing hiccups.
The fact that it only flies to and from second-tier airports limits the availability and viability of flights, cutting into potential markets of customers. If you’re like me and want to fly as far away as the East coast, that means travelling all the way to Winnipeg just to get on a plane, or a convoluted gauntlet of flights that will end up costing about as much as it would to fly with Air Canada or WestJet to begin with. What’s a guy to do?
NewLeaf has just suspended all flights in and out of Regina, Saskatoon, Kamloops and Victoria for November, too. This is only temporary. According to New Leaf, it’s only going to go on until the company can add more aircraft to its fleet. Fair enough.
How long will it take for those flights to be available again? It’s not certain. Troubling as that is, we have to be patient with new companies. These are what I’ll call growing pains. And at the end of the day, I’m willing to be patient if it means I can fly—and travel—for cheaper.
