After 5 years of domestic flights from Halifax to St. John's and Toronto, Canada 3000 placed a permanent station manager and two assistants at Halifax Airport (YHZ). Now there are overseas flights to Hamburg, Munich, Glasgow, London and Amsterdam and "scheduled charter" domestic flights added to Calgary, Edmonton, and Vancouver plus early spring flights to the south. To handle increased business, Canada 3000 has hired 23 more staff to fill passenger and supervisory positions, bringing its total to over 30.

With Vancouver and Edmonton airports charging passenger fees and Calgary soon to follow, it is expected that Halifax will not be too far behind. As Transport Canada unloads its federally-run airports, the Canada air transport tax and HST are simply not enouth to pay for expensive airports. Good news is that the Calgary ticket tax will be collected with ticket purchase by airlines or travel agents, and not paid on location as a separate tax as in Vancouver. We must hope for the former in Halifax too.

Airports at Sydney and Yarmouth were taken over by local airport authorities in August. These airports are so-called "regional" airports so that while they must recover operating costs, there will be federal assistance available for the capital cost of upgrades. Sydney's losses topped one million dollars last year but fortunately passenger volume is large enough that only a $10 ticket tax should cover the deficit. Yarmouth is another story as that airport has only one flight per day (to/from Halifax). Unfortunately Air Nova says that an improved schedule (east in the morning and west to Yarmouth in the evening) and a round trip fare of $149 has not improved passenger counts. Under the local takeover deal, Transport Canada guarantees the airport $1.9 million to cover any deficits incurred during the next 3 years but after that it will be a struggle.

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