Saskatoon and Regina Air Service

[casper]

Originally Posted by djforsberg

Did you even read the article? How would your idea of a passenger bill of rights, solve the problems highlighted in it particularly the profit motive vs national interest, lack of competition, lack of workers, and the use of public infrastructure to benefit private interests?

I’m also confused by how you say “thankfully” workers in Regina/Saskatoon are contracted out and then a few paragraphs later admit that job security is why airlines can’t find workers. Nationalization would solve this major problem.

I did read the article and agree on the problem, the performance of Air Canada, WestJet and the airports over the past few weeks has been terrible and needs to be fixed.

I disagree on the proposed solution. They propose the solution is to nationalize Air Canada.

The key difference between now and the 1980s and 1990s for domestic air travel is we use to have two airlines running aircraft on the same routes that were operating at fairly low capacity factors. I use to travel between Ottawa and Vancouver regularly in the 90s. A route that was always a A320 or 737 and usually had an empty middle seat. Today that is not the case. Computer modelling, yield management etc and result in full flights.

When a flight gets cancelled you just cant rebook people onto another flight. To their credit AC and WS have an agreement in place that allows them to move passengers on the other airline if it same day and a domestic only itinerary. The requires staff know how to use their computer systems which is another problem.

That does not happen with the ULCC. Swoop and Flair are island onto themselves. That needs to be fixed. If Swoop is going to be late and seats are available on Flair or WS or AC it needs to be forced to rebook passengers. It will cost them money and their prices will go up to be incline with AC and WS.

Nationalizing AC and then making them compete with Swoop is not a solution.

As for the airports, honestly they are already nationalized. The land is owned by the government, the airports are operated by community based non-profits with board of directors mostly made up of local business and municipal governments.