Millions of Canadians flying out of U.S. airports to save money

Photograph by: Mark van Manen , Vancouver Sun

Cloverdale resident Scott Henning has flown out of Bellingham’s airport to Las Vegas twice — each time with a group of six friends. He has saved a lot of money travelling through BLI over YVR, and he plans to do it again at the end of the summer. The cheapest flights out of Vancouver that Henning could find were $630; from Bellingham he paid $230.

“You can get it even cheaper,” Henning said. “And the package deals — they’re not even comparable.”

Henning is not alone. A senate committee report on airports — The Future of Canadian Air Travel: Toll Booth or Spark Plug — says that millions of Canadians are opting to drive across the line to take advantage of cheaper flights. About 950,000 Canadian passengers use Bellingham and Seattle airports instead of YVR each year, according to a report prepared by the Canadian Airports Council in March.

Canadian airports are losing 4.5 million Canadian passengers to airports just across the line, which has the senate committee report calling for the establishment of a National Air Travel Strategy, and an end to the practice of charging airports ground rent.

Senator Dennis Dawson is chair of the senate committee that wrote the report, and he says Canada is losing $1 billion a year in air travel alone from Canadians who choose to travel out of U.S. airports.

He says it’s quite natural for people to look for the best deal, and that a family of four could save as much as $1,000 by flying out of the United States because the Americans subsidize their airports while the Canadians charge them rent and expect users to cover costs like security and air traffic control.

“The Government of Canada should stop treating airports as a source of public revenue,” Dawson said.

People flying out of Canadian airports often pay 60 and 75 per cent above the airline’s base fare to cover taxes and charges, compared to between 10 and 18 per cent in the U.S., the senate report found.

The CAC report found that a family of four could save $1,365 flying out of Bellingham instead of Vancouver for a vacation in Hawaii. The figures show that the total cost for the family to fly would be $3,165.76 out of Vancouver, including $440.44 in taxes and fees, while the cost to fly out of Bellingham would be $1,800.32, including $151.20 in taxes and fees.

Discovering the reasons the prices are so high in Canada was part of the senate committee’s work.

“... [T]here was a consensus among the majority of witnesses who appeared before the committee that the high cost of flying in Canada is directly attributable to government taxes, fees and other charges that are either paid by passengers directly, or are charged to airports or airlines and passed on to passengers. This conclusion is supported by the findings of the World Economic Forum, which ranked Canada 125th out of 139 countries for ticket taxes and airport charges in 2011,” the report states.

“Government taxes and fees associated with air travel, starting with ground rents, need to be reduced to help make air travel in Canada more affordable and more competitive,” the report concludes.

Dawson said the committee found that the government should transfer ownership of the airports to the airport authorities, which would save them the cost of the rents.

The Vancouver Airport Authority pays Ottawa $34 million each year in rent, said Tony Gugliotta, senior vice-president of marketing and business development.

“[Eliminating the] rent would not solve the gap in ticket prices — it’s more than just rent,” Gugliotta said, adding that Canada has a philosophy that users should cover the cover of air travel while the United States subsidizes airports seemingly because they believe transportation is an enabler of economic growth.

“They view it as an investment,” Gugliotta said. For instance, a recent runway extension at Bellingham’s airport was paid for by the American government, while in Canada, airport improvements are paid for by departing travellers through the Airport Improvement Fee, which is $20 for passengers flying outside of B.C. and Yukon.

YVR serves a total of 17 million passengers each year, of which five million are travellers to the U.S. Gugliotta said most of the nearly one million passengers flying out of Bellingham are headed to destinations within the U.S.

“So 20 per cent of our U.S. traffic is using Bellingham or Seattle,” Gugliotta said. “It’s pretty significant.”

Traffic at Bellingham International Airport is up 115 per cent for the period 2007 to 2011, with 62 per cent of travellers coming from Canada, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Chris Youngson, who lives in North Vancouver, has flown to Las Vegas from Bellingham a half a dozen times and says he usually pays about $180 for the flight, and sometimes even less.

He says if the price difference fell under $50, he would fly out of YVR, especially since with a combination of bus, seabus and Canada Line, he can get from his home at the top of Capilano Road, he can get to the airport in just over an hour. The drive to Bellingham is 80.7 kilometres from Vancouver.

Both Henning and Youngson said the cheap parking at Bellingham’s airport — it’s $9 a day — is one appeal, as is the fact that the airport is small so that there are usually no waits for security or luggage.

“It’s 100 metres to the airport from the parking lot,” Youngson said. “There’s no customs, so usually I don’t have to wait at all.”

At YVR, long-term parking is $15.75 a day and the lot is not within walking distance to the terminal, but there is a shuttle bus. YVR is a high-end airport complete with duty free shops, full services restaurants and other amenities. Gugliotta said some travellers start their vacation at the airport.

But for Henning and Youngson, the bare-bones nature of the Bellingham airport is not a concern. The fact that Allegiant, which is one of the airlines flying out of Bellingham, makes passengers pay for their bags, or to pre-select a seat, doesn’t phase Henning.

“I’ve never had a problem. As long as you get there a bit early the seats are not a problem.”

As far as the extra luggage fees, Henning said it’s worth it to save half the airfare.

Gugliotta said 22 airlines signed on for an incentive deal YVR offered to keep airlines flying out of Vancouver that froze fees at 2010 levels, even if an airline increased their capacity or service.

Although he did not have specific numbers, Gugliotta said American passengers sometimes fly out of YVR because Vancouver’s airport has good deals on charter flights to Asia and Europe. He also said there are times that fares to American destinations like Las Vegas are cheaper out of Vancouver than Bellingham, and that it pays to shop around.

tsherlock@vancouversun.com

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