Originally Posted by
krazykanuck
Nope. As mentioned, Canadian airports are stupidly expensive to fly out of. Airlines that have convenient near border airports make a killing b/c of this, think Buffalo, NY, Bellingham, WA, etc.
I mean, ...., I'm Canadian and last time I needed to go to Canada which was July last year, I flew to Grand Forks, ND, rented a car, and drove across! That's how insane the fare and fee differences are. We're talking 25k DL miles + $11.20 vs. 55k + $100 for the flight to YWG (150 miles further north).
This is one of those things that is mis-attributed as "Canada is expensive".
The majority of taxes on international USA-CANADA-USA flights, are actually US taxes for crossing the border, and a little extra C$ in AIF fees to cover the operating costs of the US Customs pre-clearance (essentially another US tax).
Typically a USA-Canada flight is 40-50$ cheaper than a Canada-USA due to the US taxes.
People drive across the border (Bellingham, Platsburgh, etc) because it's free to cross the border by land, and that knocks a good chunk of the cost of a ticket. You're rarely going to see people drive across the border to grab an international flight, it's almost always to catch a US domestic flight.
As for the one 'tax' that is a little higher (AIF/PFC) for Canadian airports vs US airports, it's mostly because Canadian airports are mostly self-funded, and US airports receive a lot of funding from local & state government, along with FAA grants.