Canada’s Competition Bureau has obtained court orders requiring Air Canada (AC, Montréal Trudeau) and WestJet (WS, Calgary) to provide information for its probe into the country's airline sector, marking the first time it has used its new data gathering powers.

The regulator launched its airline market study on July 29, 2024, to “better understand competition issues in the industry and examine what changes can be made to improve competition in passenger air travel in Canada”. This year, the Canadian market has lost Lynx Air and Canada Jetlines with both filing for bankruptcy while Flair Airlines, an ultra-low-cost carrier, is seeking investors to raise cash in what interim chief executive officer Maciej Wilk called a "slightly higher-risk investment”.

According to the Bureau, the domestic air travel market is:

  • Concentrated with only two major airlines;
  • Domestic airfares appear to be relatively high;
  • Carrier startups appear to face challenges entering the market; and
  • More complaints have been filed about the state of air travel services in recent years (reaching an all-time-high in September, with around 78,000 complaints lodged with the Canadian Transportation Agency, CBC News reported).

In a statement to ch-aviation, Air Canada said it has already engaged with the Bureau about delivering the requested documents. “We will continue to participate in the review, which [...] is not an investigation into specific allegations of wrongdoing.”

Meanwhile, WestJet told ch-aviation: "As the airline that democratised travel in Canada [...], we encourage the Bureau’s study to focus on the issues that will grow aviation in Canada.” However, in a response to Commissioner of Competition Matthew Boswell, WestJet said the study's terms of reference fundamentally ignore many of the key barriers unique to Canada that drive up costs for air travellers and reduce competition, such as an uncompetitive tax and regulatory environment.

The carrier made a series of recommendations to the federal government including:

  • Undertake a comprehensive review on whether the user-pay model for aviation infrastructure works in present-day Canada, considering competitiveness impact, intermodal equity, and value for taxpayer money;
  • Freeze all mandatory government fees and charges until the comprehensive review is complete; and
  • Permanently cease collecting rents from Canadian airports as a non-transparent duplicative charge.

The Bureau's study is expected to be completed, and the final report published in June 2025.