Canada’s airports: a support package, but rents contentious

Eyes have been on the U.S. and how its air transport business has suffered at the hands of the pandemic.

But across the border in Canada the pandemic's impact on aviation and the public at large has been more severe, and only now does it appear that a corner might be turned.

For the airport sector there has been a regular diminution of business down to 10% of 2019 levels, with all the financial impact that has. The government's response has been to prepare a financial aid package not dissimilar to the 'infrastructure' based one recently announced in the US.

But the airports' representative body is calling for more, and particularly a freeze on Crown Rents. Those rents are high and unpopular with the air transport community.

But neither has privatisation (of which there is little) stirred the collective imagination thus far. Events can often have unforeseen consequences though, and it is not out of the question that the 2016-17 airport privatisation government investigation could be rekindled as the airports struggle to rebuild both their business and their infrastructure in the wake of the virus.