One of Our Airports is Missing!!!

Canadian Airports Council to Host Forum on Cross Border Shopping of Air Travel

OTTAWA, Feb. 29, 2012 /CNW/ - Picture a Canadian airport that handles some five million passengers a year. Now imagine this airport, and all of the economic activity associated with it, has vanished from the country. In a one day forum being held in Toronto next month, aviation and business officials will discuss essentially that: The challenge of five million Canadians a year choosing to "cross border shop" their air travel through U.S. border airports.

"Canadians routinely hop over the US border to save money on electronics, food, clothes -- and now they're doing it for cheaper flights, too. This is a significant economic loss to Canada and it is time to tackle it," said CAC Chairman Bill Restall. "For years, we have talked about the need to address Canada's cost competitiveness relative to the U.S. and elsewhere. But we are not just losing passengers because of this disadvantage, we are ceding to the U.S. thousands of jobs, millions of dollars in wages and billions in economic activity."

Being held March 20^th at the InterContinental Toronto Centre, the one-day forum is the first time that airports, air carriers and other industry stakeholders will gather in a public forum to discuss cross border shopping of air travel and tackle the difficult questions: How do we fix this in today's tight fiscal environment? How do we sound the alarm that one of our airports is missing and that this is bad for jobs, communities and for Canada?

Event participants include:

• Gerry Bruno, Group Chief Executive Officer, InterVISTAS
• Vijay Gill, Principal Research Associate, Transportation and Infrastructure
• Warren Everson, Senior Vice President Policy, Canadian Chamber of Commerce
• Cyriel Kronenberg, Assistant Director, Government and Infrastructure Affairs, International Air Transport Association
• John Korenic, Director, Airline and Passenger Development, Vancouver Airport Authority
• Mike Seabrook, Vice-President, London International Airport
• Fred Lazar, Associate Professor of Economics at the Schulich School of Business, York University
• Marc Andre O'Rourke, Director, National Airlines Council of Canada
• Tony Pollard, President & CEO Hotel Association of Canada
• John Weatherill, Executive Vice President, InterVISTAS

For information on registration, please visit www.canadasairports.com.

About the Canadian Airports Council

The Canadian Airports Council (CAC), a division of Airports Council International-North America, is the voice for Canada's airports community and the Canadian unit of Airports Council International-North America. Its 45 members represent more than 200 airports, including all of the National Airports System (NAS) airports and most significant municipal airports in every province and territory. Together, CAC members handle virtually all of the nation's air cargo and international passenger traffic and 95% of domestic passenger traffic. They create in excess of $45 billion in economic activity in the communities they serve. And more than 200,000 jobs are directly associated with CAC member airports, generating a payroll of more than $8 billion annually.

Daniel-Robert Gooch
President
Canadian Airports Council
[phone] ext 16
[email protected]