More than 40 years ago, I started my career running a small travel agency for Quebec students because I believed they should be encouraged to explore the world. This led me to found Transat and its Air Transat business unit, which in recent years has won several awards as the world’s best leisure airline.

Working in the travel industry means facing constant crises. Economic, climatic, political and of course health crises – Transat has played its part over the years and overcome them all.

And then came COVID-19, which is causing far greater upheaval than anything we’ve seen before. For almost a year now, international movements have been reduced to the essentials, which has had a devastating impact on all travelers. Airlines, airports, subcontractors, travel agents and tourism companies are suffering like never before.

In the past few weeks, an anti-air travel narrative has emerged in Quebec, fueled by some images of irresponsible tourists who disregarded the most basic pandemic hygiene practices.

That concern is now compounded by the existence of new virus variants that are feared to be brought to Canada by air, despite all the industry’s extensive efforts to make travel safer and despite the fact that there are now international arrivals far more numerous at the land border than at airports.

As a result, the government has asked us to suspend all of our flights to the south by April 30th and we have come to an agreement, which in turn forces us to suspend all of our operations that cannot be sustained for a few flights per week.

The pandemic that affects us all has many victims and airlines have already done more than their share. But I want us to remember that the development of international travel over the past 50 years has brought us openness to the world and others, prosperity and pleasure.

It is all too easy to give in to the temptation to find someone to be responsible for our troubles and to imagine that the enemy is coming at us from outside, from abroad – if they have been circulating among us for a very long time.

Canada’s aviation ecosystem took decades to build. Our country considers this sector to be so strategic that it prohibits airlines from being majority-owned by foreigners. Maintaining control of the sector means ensuring its connection to the rest of the world and its stability even in times of crisis.

Air traffic cannot simply be stopped and easily restarted after a few months. Massive investments are lost, skills deteriorate. This is shown by the tens of thousands of workers in the industry who for months have had to express their need and increasingly consider alternative careers. The cost and effort to restart and rebuild the lost data will be enormous.

For this reason, it is imperative that Canada pursues long-term policies. We cannot simply prevent Canadians from traveling or ask them not to travel without carefully weighing the consequences. The actions just announced have the advantage of clearing the immediate challenge ahead, but there is an urgent need now to define a clear plan for the future.

We need to define how to ensure that tour operators, airlines, airports, tour operators, travel agents and all actors in the ecosystem have the necessary cash flows to weather the crisis, reimburse their customers who have been unable to travel and give their skills maintain their human resources and their operational capacity.

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And measures must be taken that, in due course, will allow us to restart safely as soon as possible. In this context, we welcome the implementation of tests at airports, which we have been requesting for months.

We have waited far too long. Let’s not look inward and make sure we keep our connection with the world. When the government finally tries to enter into dialogue, we will respond. It’s urgent and important.

Jean-Marc Eustache is President and CEO of Transat.

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