Pearson’s fees spark outrage

Carriers not likely to expand at priciest airport: Industry Feds blasted as rent spurs facility operator to hike charges

The highest landing fees on the planet have made Toronto’s Pearson International Airport just about the last place in the world an airline would want to expand its business, critics say. An already dire situation was made worse yesterday when the Greater Toronto Airports Authority confirmed it is raising Pearson landing fees for 2006 by 6.9 per cent and general terminal charges by 8.9 per cent.

“ With costs at Pearson so high, there is little incentive for a U. S.based carrier to expand service to Toronto,” said Dave Castelveter, spokesperson for the Air U. S. airlines. “ The airport and community that is served by the airport would stand a better chance at seeing airlines grow their business with a more efficient cost structure.”

“ It’s a business, and we’re here to make money,” said Stan Morais, general manager of Canadian operations of El Al Israel Airlines and spokesman for the foreign carriers at Pearson. The airports authority said almost 60 per cent of the landing fee hike is “ directly attributable to the increase in rent payments to the federal government that the GTAA must pay in 2006 compared to the rent paid in 2005.”

“Clearly things are getting worse, not better, for air carriers and their passengers at Pearson Airport,” said Cliff Mackay, president of the Air Transport Association of Canada.

insurance).

Are you willing to pay an annual fee? That’s the next question.

Only Desjardins offers no- fee Visa cards with all the travel rewards and travel insurance benefits you’ve checked off.

Okay, go back a step. Maybe you don’t mind paying an annual fee for a card with all the other features you’re looking for. If so, you have 11 cards to choose from. Suppose you want travel rewards alone, without insurance benefits. Just keep playing around to see what’s available.

You’re given a choice of 65 cards, offered by 18 financial institutions. You select the ones that interest you.

Perhaps you want a travel- reward card that doesn’t charge sky- high interest rates of 18 per cent or more. While you don’t carry a balance in Canada, you’ll be charging lots of purchases on your card while you’re away. Good news. You can find travel reward cards with interest rates as low as 8.4 per cent ( Desjardins), 10.9 per cent ( the Bank of Montreal), 12.9 per cent ( HSBC Bank Canada) and 14.5 per cent ( the National Bank). The Financial Consumer Agency was set up by the government to enforce banking laws and educate customers. The agency already publishes Credit Cards and You, a semi- annual comparison of rates and service charges. But the new online tool, which took 18 months to develop, is designed to help people find cards that meet their requirements.

“ Consumers are usually faithful to the credit cards they already have, without necessarily knowing if they have the right one,” says Jean- Guy St- Amour, a spokesman for the Financial Consumer Agency.

If you can compare your choices easily, you may be more amenable to switching. That’s the goal of the one- stop- shopping approach.

Suppose you do carry a balance on your credit card from month to month. You want to find the lowest rates. Your search will turn up 37 cards that fit your profile, from 12 financial institutions. The only thing that’s missing here is a calculator that combines a credit card’s annual fee with the annual interest rate.

For that, you have to go to www.strategis.gc.ca, Industry Canada’s website. ( Too bad the one-stop-shopping approach doesn’t apply to non- co- operating government agencies.)

Let’s say you carry a $1,000 monthly balance on your credit card. The credit- card- costs calculator shows how much you pay in total charges a year and the adjusted rate ( taking a card’s interest rate and annual fee into account). The Royal Bank, for example, offers a low- fee Visa card at 10.5 per cent. But there’s a $ 25 annual fee. Use the calculator to see you’re paying $ 130 a year in total charges. The adjusted rate is 13 per cent. Now you’ve seen the variety of credit cards available, you may be tempted to apply for more.

Don’t get carried away, says StAmour.

“ We promote having only one all- purpose card,” he says, “ maybe two if you’re self- employed or you travel for business purposes.” With too many cards, you risk losing track of what you spend and paying too much for credit. Even a “ low- rate card” is more expensive than what you’d pay for a loan or line of credit from the same financial institution.