Airports Call For Fast Action On ‘Atlantic Bubble’
HALIFAX — Leaders at airports across Atlantic Canada are calling on provincial governments to open the borders and allow unrestricted travel between Atlantic provinces.
Reg Wright, the president of the Atlantic Canada Airport Association (ACAA), says a so-called “Atlantic Bubble” is a crucial step towards “restoring the devastated travel and tourism sector” in the region.
In a recent news release, Wright said leaders need to open provincial borders fast or risk plunging the region’s airports into even more dire financial straits.
“Air access is the connective tissue in the Atlantic Canadian economy and travel is going to be critical to our economic recovery,” Wright said. “Airports are ready to play an enabling role in restoring our economy and also doing our part to provide a safe, healthy, end-to-end travel framework.”
Covid-19 travel restrictions have meant “unprecedented declines” in passage traffic at Atlantic Canadian airports.
Halifax’s Stanfield International Airport, for example, saw passenger traffic drop 93 percent in April after Covid-19-related travel restrictions grounded most flights, according to airport spokesperson Tiffany Chase.
“We served fewer people in a whole month than we did on an average day the prior year. So, certainly a dramatic reduction in the number of passengers,” Chase said.
Unrestricted travel between the Atlantic provinces would theoretically mean brining back about 10 percent of those passengers.
Chase says about 10 percent of flights at the Halifax airport are to or from Atlantic provinces (mostly Newfoundland). Regaining that relatively small number of passengers won’t do much for airport revenues but Chase says an Atlantic Bubble is “really important” for the tourism industry as a whole.
And airports need tourism to survive.
“It’s important for us that the tourism industry is able to rebound, and our tourism operators are able to salvage what remains for the season in 2020,” Chase said.
“Airports need tourism and our economy needs tourism, which represents six percent of our GDP in the region, double the national average,” ACAA executive director Monette Pasher explained.
Chase says airlines are beginning to expand their flight schedules but are only committing to very limited growth because they don’t know when or how governments will ease travel restrictions.
She said most airlines update their schedules a few months in advance so there’s a good chance flights between Atlantic provinces won’t start until weeks after any “bubble” announcement is made.
“We do look forward to more certainty and clarity around when and how the travel restrictions may change because that will allow us, as well as our service providers such as airlines, to plan for putting that service in place when the demand will be there,” she said.
Atlantic Canadian premiers have said they are considering opening up borders with an Atlantic bubble but have so far been hesitant to commit to any firm dates.
Last week, PEI premier Dennis King said July 11 he believes some kind of bubble could happen by early July. Nova Scotia premier Stephen McNeil, meanwhile, said Nova Scotia is open to a bubble, but not until health officials are sure Covid-19 case numbers are low and can remain low in all Atlantic provinces.