Canada's Airports

The Time for Cargo Open Skies is Now

By Jim Facette, President and CEO, Canadian Airports Council

Cargo is on focus this year in Canada with Calgary hosting the 2006 Air Cargo Forum. Canada's airports see the event as the ideal opportunity to showcase the importance of air cargo to Canada and the tremendous economic potential that would come from a liberal cargo environment. While not a new concern, the combination of a new government and continued liberalization overseas have given greater urgency to the need for a change in the federal government's approach to one that pursues liberalization.

As a result, while calling for Open Skies to become the standard in bilateral air service talks, Canada's airports also have raised their voice to call on the Canadian government for unilateral Open Skies for cargo.

Cargo is big business for Canada, but has the potential to be even bigger. Canada is a big trading nation: We exported more than $360 billion (USD) last year. That is nearly 40 percent of what the U.S. exports from a country with about four million fewer people than the state of California.

Nevertheless, Canada's cargo traffic is relatively small compared with other regions of the world. Canadian air cargo tonnage currently is around 1.4 billion tonnes a year - representing a 55 percent increase over a decade ago, but still a fraction of the tonnage elsewhere.

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Meanwhile cargo carriers of the world are banging at Canada's door with avid interest in serving our communities, but have been thwarted by restrictive bilateral agreements. Canada does not currently even have bilateral agreements in place with such sixth freedom heavyweights as Singapore and Luxembourg.

Winds of change in Ottawa over the past two years have brought in several liberalized agreements with the People's Republic of China, India, the U.S., United Kingdom and Portugal. Nevertheless, there are no ifs, ands, or buts about it; Canada is leaving money on the table in the cargo sector through its continued pursuit of the old bilateral approach.

By the time you read this article, Canada's airports are hoping that the federal government will have announced additional liberalization measures for cargo as well. Canada's airports are ready. As part of the more than $9.5 billion in committed capital improvements since 1992, Canada's airports have increased both the efficiency and capacity of the nation's air cargo infrastructure. This growth is to enable airports to prepare for the 35 percent to 65 percent increase in traffic already forecast, but there is room for additional growth should a change in international air policy make that possible.

Canada's airports have been working hard to obtain competitive international air cargo service to a great deal of success. But we need an aggressive change in the federal government's approach to international air service. Canada's airports say unilateral Open Skies for cargo is the right approach for Canada.