Ready for take-off

Spreading the word
In the past, even as our capabilities have improved, Canada has had a spotty record of promoting itself as a place for international carriers to stop.

“I think it’s an awareness issue, if anything. We need to be more aggressive in letting the rest of the world know that, indeed, the opportunity exists here,” says Jerry Staples, vice-president of marketing and business development at the Halifax International Airport Authority.

The CAC has been at the forefront of an effort to get the word out through a marketing campaign called Cargo Canada. Under the Cargo Canada banner, representatives of 15 cargo-ready airports travel to conventions and trade shows around the world to promote the entire country as an air cargo gateway—not just their individual airports. The initiative is less than a year old, but Facette says it has already garnered a favourable response among international players who previously had no idea of Canada’s capabilities.

Policy problems
These efforts are encouraging, but government policy on air cargo has yet to catch up to the vigour of the industry. And all the infrastructure and
marketing in the world won’t do any good if planes aren’t allowed to land.

There has been plenty of promise. Late in 2006, transport minister Lawrence Cannon delivered a new international air policy called Blue Sky. Blue Sky set out a much more liberalized and competitive climate for air transport, with reciprocal open skies-type agreements as a “primary objective.”

Open skies treaties expand the landing rights of foreign carriers on international routes, essentially creating a new level of service options for the countries that adopt them.

But nearly two years after the policy was released, Canada has only five open skies agreements, including a pre-existing deal with the US. By contrast, the US has 92 such arrangements, including a long-awaited agreement with the European Union reached earlier this year.

The government, for its part, has noted the disparity. A recent report from the federal Competition Policy Review Panel recommended that Canada secure more open skies agreements—with the EU as a priority—as soon as possible, stating that “[i]n practice, Canadian international air policy is still relatively restrictive.”

Canada does have approximately 75 bilateral agreements governing flyover, in-transit and landing rights with other nations. These are relatively simple agreements between two countries and are thus easier to negotiate than open skies, which require a tremendous amount of back-and-forth security and standards
discussions. But Facette notes that Canada’s pursuit of bilaterals has skewed towards passenger travel, meaning that nations with great cargo potential are sometimes overlooked because they have low passenger volumes.