Industry steps up call for federal aid program this fall.

Aerospace industry joins in urging support

Business leaders in Quebec are stepping up their call for a multibillion- dollar federal aid package this autumn to help the aerospace industry cope with COVID-19’S fallout.

Canada’s airlines, airports and aerospace manufacturers are in dire need of immediate financial help because of the coronavirus pandemic, executives said Monday during an industry forum organized by the Chamber of Commerce of Metropolitan Montreal. Air carriers alone probably need at least $7 billion, Chamber of Commerce president Michel Leblanc told Postmedia News.

Global airline revenue plunged 80 per cent in the second quarter amid a global travel slump, and passenger traffic probably won’t return to pre- pandemic levels until 2024, according to the International Air Transport Association. Governments in countries including the U. S. and Germany — but not Canada — have provided more than US$160 billion of aid to airlines.

“Our industry is on its knees,” Suzanne Benoît, head of the Aéro Montréal association, told participants during the online event.

Aerospace is one of Quebec’s — and greater Montreal’s — key industries. Its more than 200 companies employed about 43,000 people until the start of the pandemic, exporting about $ 14 billion worth of goods annually — or 80 per cent of output.

“The first thing we need to see is a federal aid program for the industry that’s well aligned with Quebec, both for manufacturers and air carriers,” Leblanc said in a telephone interview Monday. “There’s a budget update coming, and the big decision the federal government has to make is how it’s going to help the various industries.”

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, who took over in August, is expected to table a fiscal and economic update in the next few weeks. While her colleague Mélanie Joly wouldn’t go into specifics, she did indicate a willingness to help aerospace.

“The air transport sector needs to receive help,” Joly, Canada’s economic development minister, said Monday at the event, adding that her biggest preoccupation is regional air service.

What kind of help? Although Leblanc said it’s too early to say how much aerospace manufacturers need, he did say preliminary estimates show Canada’s airlines require about $7 billion to $ 9 billion, based on similar programs offered in Europe and the U.S.

“Aerospace is an industry that exports massively, so when you help the sector, it brings new money into our economy,” he said.