According to the Saturday Telegram, Air Canada announced the decision to cancel the year-round flights in May 2006, but announced the introduction of summer-only flights in July 2006.
That makes it exceedingly strange for Hickey to claim that the airline was trying to crush any competition on the route. At the time the airline decided on summer-only flights, it was bowing to political pressure and a public outcry led by the local airport authority, provincial politicians and St. John's mayor Andy Wells.
Hickey is quoted in Friday's provincial government news release as saying:
"Air Canada decided to abandon the transatlantic market in Newfoundland and Labrador last year, but decided this summer to come back to ensure that since they weren’t going to provide this necessary service, then no other provider, such as Astraeus, would be able to either."
Hickey's comments are at odds with the facts to the point of being complete nonsense.
Last February, Hickey proudly posed with the managing director of a UK-based charter airline servicing a resort complex at Deer Lake that announced it would be introducing year-round service between St. John's and Gatwick.
That was actually the second Astraeus announcement and covered the summer months. In November 2006, the company announced it would be flying during the fall and winter - note the timings - between Deer Lake and Gatwick with stops along the way in St. John's. In November, tourism minister Tom Hedderson joined Hickey and business minister Kevin O'Brien in the November laudatory release but only by O'Brien in February.
But again, here's the thing: when Air Canada announced it's summer runs it had no competition and there was little likelihood any other airline would take on the flights. Hickey's conspiracy theory is simply ludicrous.
The Friday announcement is all the more bizarre given that at no point has Hickey said a word about the Astraeus pull-out, even though he lavishly praised the company in November and February.
The end result is that local businesses - especially those in the oil business - are left in a bit of a tight spot. The Air Canada flights could handle cargo of the type often shipped from Europe to the local oil patch. Astraeus could never handle that work and that freight volume plus the passenger loads likely would be an important part of making the route commercially viable.
Hickey's posturing doesn't do much to find a new airline for the route.
What it does do, though, is pose a fairly obvious question: why did Hickey keep his mouth shut in early August but issue a news release with incorrect information in it later on solely for the purposes of slagging only one of two airlines involved. Surely, if Hickey was concerned to chastise a company for abandoning a route, he would have good cause to tear a strip off both Astraeus and Air Canada.
He might have more cause for criticising Astraeus since the company ditched St. John's after only a handful of flights that never even lasted a single year - despite the company's initial commitment to year-round service.
Perhaps Hickey is growling as a cover for something else, like maybe the inability of the current administration to address some of the issues that affected Air Canada's service in the first place. The London - St. John's portion of Air Canada's route was unique in the country since it involved arriving in a secondary destination first; the flight was actually a part of the London to Halifax run.
Customs and cost issues helped push Air Canada to make a decision to drop St. John's, but it might have been possible to deal with those if, for argument's sake, the provincial government actually had a relationship with the federal government that was on something above life support. Federal regulations required all passengers to de-plane at the first port of entry and clear customs. Had the regulation been amended to allow Halifax-bound passengers to remain on board, as in-transit passengers, then the entire issue might have been settled. of course, it's more than a bit late for that sort of positive intervention by a cabinet minister
And maybe we have just stumbled on the reason why Hickey is growling: it's a cover for his impotence.
As for why Hickey kept silent on Astraeus' decision only a month ago, we may have to ponder that one a little harder.
There's bound to be a good answer, though.
-srbp-