Changes are coming.

[jesseps]

The Canadian government is changing the rules on foreign ownership of airlines in Canada. They can now own up to 49% of an airline up from 25%.

 

So it is a possibility that Porter will be bought. The other new small discount players could also be bought and give more access to Canadians.

 

Also I saw a few days ago that Southwest Airlines is looking to fly into Canada in the future.

 

Time will tell how things turn out. It would be nice to have a carrier similar to Ryanair operate within Canada.

[Timothy]

It would be nice to have a carrier similar to Ryanair operate within Canada.

There was. A few years ago. it was called WestJet. They operated a common 737 fleet, flew in and out of an eastern hub at Hamilton to regional centres such as Thompson Manitoba and Sudbury Ontario and were thought by many to have lower fares than Air Canada. Everyone had an uncle who had 'saved big' on WestJet, which of course was purely anecdotal. Everyone remarked on how young the crews were compared to the ageing bodies at Air Canada, which was somewhat true at the time. However the cost realities of our longer sectors couldn't be overcome. WestJet forged deals with other carriers for connecting traffic, upped the eastern triangle frequencies, moved from Hamilton into the YYZ central processor, faced the reality of increasing labour costs as their workforce's average years of service increased, ended up with as much misplaced baggage and disgruntled customer levels as any other carrier, etc etc And if someone else tries to be the next WestJet, they too will likely face the same hurdles. We are not Europe, with huge populations within short distances.

I'm trying to be objective (and I'm generalizing) when I say the following: Thank goodness we have Air Canada as a stable national carrier, complemented by WestJet nationally and Transat overseas.

[jesseps]

AC is looking at having Rouge running within the country to take on the new competition that may arise.

[ERJ-Boy]

The new rule says that foreign parties can own up to 49% of airlines in Canada, but one individual investor can only own up to 25%.