Friday, March 11, 2005
For Immediate Release
Toronto – Jetsgo is the latest name to be added to the tombstone of airline deregulation in Canada.
“Transport Canada allows these operators to fly in on a wing and a prayer and destabilize the industry,” said Dave Ritchie, General Vice President of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. “When they fail like Jetsgo did today, there’s no accountability to the thousands of passengers or the hundreds of employees affected. We do not have any laws protecting employees or the travelling public from failures like this.”
“The airlines encourage you to book your tickets online, but if the airline goes out of business after you’ve bought that ticket, you’re left holding the bag” says Ritchie. “I want to know what the federal Transport Minister Jean Lapierre is doing to properly monitor the industry.”
“The Minister is calling for further integration of our airline industry through an ‘Open Skies Policy’ with U.S. carriers. Our transborder capacity is the same as it was in 1995, we had too many carriers then so why would we bring more in now,” explained Ritchie.
“The failure of Jetsgo is proof yet again that deregulation isn’t working and that our airline industry is anything but stable. It’s unfortunate that once again so many people were hurt both financially and emotionally in the process,” said Ritchie.
