Air Canada Mulls Fare Hike Due to Weak Currency
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Air Canada is studying the possibility of hiking its plane fares due to the country's weak currency, including charging for initial checked luggage.
Calin Rovinescu, the air carrier's chief executive officer, has not given any indication by how much the plane ticket's price would increase, but as an indication of things to come, he said there are no free lunches.
In the later part of January 2014, Air Canada Vacations imposed a $35 currency surcharge, while subsidiary WestJet increased fares by 2 per cent.
He could only confirm that "There are going to be some revenue strategies and some cost strategies."
Besides hiking fares, Air Canada also boosted its capacity, particularly available seat miles by 4.9 per cent compared with February 2012 in response to the 3.8 per cent rise in passenger traffic.
The higher capacity and passenger traffic are considered good signs despite the cold weather that led to many flight cancellations and the late Easter that pushed travel plans to later in spring.