Quebec recognizes that improvements must be made to its regional air transport support program.
Asked Monday about the difficulties experienced by the Air Access Program to the regions (PAAR), the Minister of Transport, Geneviève Guilbault, indicated that she had begun a reflection on this subject.
The PAAR, launched last spring by his predecessor, François Bonnardel, included two components, one which reimbursed 30% to 60% of the cost of air tickets to residents of remote regions, the other which allowed public to purchase return tickets to these regions at a cost of $500.
An unreliable service
” Is he [le PAAR] is perfect ? No. Sometimes there are issues of service discontinuity, lack of predictability, […] flights that are canceled, ”she listed.
Without going into detail, M.me Guilbault said he wanted to “consolidate the regional air transport offer a little” and give assurance to travelers that their flights will be on time and will not be canceled or postponed. “It’s a bit like that right now that we need to consolidate with the various air carriers. The importance of supporting them,” she argued.
Support carriers more
“If we can improve it, we will improve it,” she assured, speaking of the PAAR.
The intervention of M.me Guilbault followed a very critical outing by the MP for the Îles-de-la-Madeleine and Parti Québécois transport spokesperson, Joël Arseneau, who is precisely calling for “support for supply”, which he sees as one of the “key axes for reviving regional air transport”. According to him, Quebec erred in neglecting to support the offer.
“We only worked on demand, but why isn’t demand there? According to our analysis, it is that it does not correspond to the expectations of travelers and that is what all the people say in the region, ”he said in an interview with The Canadian Press.
“We have carriers who offer us a service that is inefficient, absolutely unreliable and on which we cannot rely to get around. So we prefer to take the car, ”he laments.
Discount tickets: disappointing results
The madelinot deputy thus underlines that barely 20% of the 98,000 or so reduced rate tickets offered by the program have found takers.
It is urgent, he said, to quickly bring together the Task Force on the revival of regional air services in order to “develop a real air transport strategy for Quebec”. This group, he notes in passing, has not met since March 2022.
“We are asking the government to sit down at the table and go back to square one and say: there were interesting proposals to also address the offer and if there is competition that must be supported in a certain measure by the government, let’s do it,” he insists.
Geneviève Guilbault nevertheless defended the program, recalling on the one hand that it had been created in the context of a pandemic in the hope of taking advantage of “the tourist opportunity that has emerged for destinations in Quebec, especially that ‘we were not allowed to travel outside Quebec’. On the other hand, she argues that the program has worked well for certain destinations, “especially first for the Îles-de-la-Madeleine, where the most tickets were sold, Fermont, Sept-Îles, Gaspé, Rouyn-Noranda and Val-d’Or. These are the six destinations where the most tickets were sold. »
Congestion on the Islands
Joël Arseneau replies, however, that the minister should look at the other side of the coin with regard to his hometown.
“In the Îles-de-la-Madeleine, there was greater success because it was deemed profitable by a greater number of people. But this caused congestion in air transport which prevented the Madelinots from traveling for treatment, to do business, to visit their families during the summer period and, once the summer period was over, the supply fell to flat,” he says.
Mme Guilbault met the PQ MP shortly after the holidays. “He told me about a certain number of elements which, precisely, were causing problems in the Magdalen Islands, improvements that could be made,” said the minister.
“Mme Guilbault actually showed great openness by saying: listen, if that poses a real problem, we want to improve the program, ”recognizes Joël Arseneau immediately, leaving a glimmer of hope. “We need to convene the Task Force and I hope for an openness from the Minister because we will have to go much further than amendments to the program. She has the chance, precisely, to put the work back on the job and see with the partners in the community, ”concluded the PQ MP.