Originally Posted by ACArbeiter
what would help and could be easily arranged is if you could transit Canada without clearning customs. Eg:
A) YYZ-FRA-CAI
B) MEX-YYZ- FRA
A) the pax will not clear German customs, bags go though to ATH
B) Welcome to Canada! Pls fill out your Cdn immigration cards, pick up your bags, then take the skylink back to the Infield terminal you just left. And you will be doing this on the return flight as well.
If other countries let foreign nationals transit without going though customs, why don't we?
But this is at the heart of AC's current strategy of hubbing in Canada for fliers going to/from South/Latin America to either Asia or Europe. YYZ, YUL and YVR are all going to have sterile transit in a year or two to make transfers much simpler, and not requiring Canadian Immigration/Customs clearance.
Already, AC is offering Americans a modified clearance procedure on some major routes. Last month I rode the infield shuttle with a fellow from the NYC area. He had flown into YYZ earlier in the day, done business in Toronto, and was back out for his flight to TLV. He was not required to pick up his checked luggage at Customs. It was now held in sterile transfer and boarded onto the TLV flight without inspection. On the way back, US bound passengers are taken directly to T2 where they are joined with the bags [like everyone else] to preclear US INS/Customs. [They'd have to do this at one end of their journey, and they do get fast-tracked to beat the crowds at T2.]
As for US regionals expanding their transborder ops, and feeding Canadians onward, they've been able to do that since Open Skies was introduced a couple of decades ago, so there is nothing stopping them flying into smaller Canadian cities, as I noted, several have. I believe NWX is flying into Charlottetown in the summer months, and AS/Horizon is flying into Kamloops during the winter ski season.
As for the large number of US cities that have regional service, it should also be noted that many of these communities provide a subsidy to these airlines to fly that service. But there is also a major difference in the structure of middle tier business between Canada and the US. The is a much larger mid corporate sector down there, and this accounts for a lot more travel to mid and small cities for numerous reasons.
One can go on and on about how different the US market is from the Canadian one. Unfortunately, too many people are unwilling to accept this simple reality, and insist Canada's the same as the US, just 90% smaller. 'Taint quite so simple.