Could it be that aboard the same plane flying to Quebec next summer, passengers will benefit from the $ 500 fare announced Tuesday by the Legault government, while others pay full price? The answer is simple: yes, because $ 500 tickets will be offered on a “first come, first served” basis.
Not all airplane seats will be priced at $ 500Quebec Ministry of Transport (MTQ) spokesman Louis-André Bertrand confirmed, hours after Minister François Bonnardel’s press conference.
Generally well received by representatives of the regions, the government plan however has some blind spots.
The number of plane tickets at $ 500 will be limited, it was admitted from the start, but Quebec does not yet know how many tickets will be offered at this price. At the time of this writing, MTQ has not provided Radio-Canada estimates.
MTQ also did not specify the criteria that would be used to establish the number of tickets available by region or route.
” Tags will be determined later. “
How will the envelope be shared?
The plan announced by Minister François Bonnardel has an envelope of $ 261 million over five years. Of this amount, how much will be used to subsidize the $ 500 plane ticket? It is impossible to know exactly.
On the MTQ website, however, the information allows us to infer that this will be only a fraction of the total envelope.
In 2022-2023, the government will release $ 34 million to fund not only the $ 500 flight, but also two more measures: an enhancement to the Airfare Reduction Program and financial support to increase the frequency of flights to an area that lack of service.
For the next four years, the amount allocated to these three measures will increase from $ 34 million to $ 50 million, but the MTQ website does not indicate how the amounts will be distributed.
What efficiency?
With its $ 500 tickets, the government hopes to stimulate demand for regional flights, so that air carriers can compete more tightly and, sooner or later, reduce their fares.
MTQ spokesman Louis-André Bertrand reiterated that the $ 500 tickets represented a step in the direction better accessibility for regional flights to the province.
In the absence of accurate data, however, it seems difficult at this time to assess the potential impact of this measure on the airline industry ride in the Quebec region.
As an indication, according to a document from the Quebec Federation of Municipalities, approximately 875,000 passengers boarded or boarded a plane at a regional or local airport in the province in 2016.
Source: Radio-Canada