Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.

Thank you very much for having me here today.

My name is Andy Gibbon. I am the vice-president of external affairs for the WestJet group.

We are pleased to be here to express our views on the state of airline competition in Canada.

WestJet has been enhancing competition and offering Canadians a range of affordable air travel options for 28 years.

No company or individual has our vantage point for this discussion. WestJet is the company that made it. We took on the nation’s largest carrier when many said it could not be done.

Canada is best served by a strong and profitable WestJet, but we can do this only thanks to our guests. They have a choice, and they choose us. We are grateful.

The democratization of Canadian air travel is a WestJet achievement. In our years of serving Canadians, WestJet has cut airfares in half and increased the percentage of Canadians flying by more than 50%.

Launched in 1996 with two aircraft, 200 employees, five destinations and a dream, WestJet has grown to more than 180 aircraft and 14,000 employees, flying to more than 100 destinations in 23 countries.

With great effort, we built an airline to serve Canada. Our plan is to continue to grow better, to connect Canadians with where they want to go and to support the recovery of the tourism industry across the nation. We are adding more routes, more services and more choices under our ambitious growth strategy, which is just shy of two years old.

While there are no barriers to entry into the Canadian marketplace, it isn’t easy to grow and succeed as a new airline in Canada.

First, Canada’s geography and market are challenges. To take one example, in Europe there are 100 air travel markets with a population of over 500,000, while in Canada there are 10.

Even though its area is similar to ours, Europe, with a population 20 times greater than that of Canada, has a market that can more readily support very low-cost carriers and market newcomers.

Second, we heard experts say on Tuesday that Canada has a high and uncompetitive tax and regulatory environment, with high mandatory third party fees. The most recent budget states, “It is only fair that Canadians have full transparency about the full cost of their flight.” We agree. This must include the mandatory third party fees that truly drive up ticket prices.

Successful American carriers have found a way to serve Canadians through U.S. border communities. They do this because there are fewer fees. To them, Canada is a low-margin, high-tax and regulatory burdensome market. To this end, we recommend reviewing all taxes, fees and service charges to provide greater transparency for Canadians and a market environment to enable all carriers to thrive. This must be part of an overall review on whether the user-pay model is working for a modern Canada.

I’d like to briefly update from my last appearance at this committee to address the challenges we all face in the postpandemic start-up. We at WestJet are thriving once again. We have hired thousands of new staff. We are beyond 100% capacity and back to where we were before 2020. We have further expanded with new strategic routes while maximizing choice for Canadian consumers.

Our ambitious growth plan, which has been welcomed by Canadian communities in all regions, has three pillars. The first is to continue to be Canada’s coast to coast leisure champion. The second is to provide western leadership and bring strategic investments to historically underserved markets in the west. The third is to return to our low-cost routes.

This is what made WestJet successful and what Canadians fell in love with. We know that; we've heard that, and we are returning to what made us successful.

We are proud to be part of an industry that, despite across-the-board cost increases, has managed to maintain stable and constant prices.

Canada has a competitive air travel market, but we can work together to make it better in partnership with government.

We put forward the following recommendations for committee members:

First, review the user-pay model for a modern Canada. All government and third party fees should be reviewed for competitiveness impacts, intermodal equity and value for taxpayers' money.

Second, officially suspend all APPR policy developments. There is agreement across all communities, chambers, airports, airlines big and small, and provincial governments that these proposals do not help lower prices or increase competition. We do not believe changes should be contemplated until the current system works for Canadians. Currently, there is inconsistent application of these policies, and there are huge backlogs at the Canadian Transportation Agency that need to be addressed.

Thank you again for having me here today. I welcome your questions and look forward to this discussion.