TORONTO — Back when this story ran, passenger facility charges (PFCs) – known to most Canadians these days as airport improvement fees (AIFs) – had touched a nerve with the travel industry.
The headline for ‘It Happened This Week’ is: ‘ACTA National looking at legal challenge on Passenger Facility Charges’
The year before this story ran, U.S. airports began levying PFCs on air travellers, capped at US$3 per passenger, per flight (the cap was later raised to US$4.50 per ticket / $18 per roundtrip). Nearly all Canadian airports, plus many more airports around the world, followed suit with PFCs of their own.
When the Travelweek story ran, ACTA’s then-incoming President and Aviation Chairman, Mike Hannah, said there might be a legal challenge to be made against charging PFCs in Canada. The Vancouver Airport Authority was levying its own PFC, and wanted travel agents to collect the tax for a 5% commission. Hannah told Travelweek that several agents had already told ACTA in no uncertain terms that they wouldn’t collect the PFC, “because the tax is unfair, and would be an administrative nightmare.”
Did this headline appear in Travelweek in 1993, 1997 or 1999?
Fill out the contest form below, with your guess and your email address. We’ll announce the answer and the winner next week, along with the next contest headline. Last week’s headline about Unitours ran in March and April 1986. Our winner for Week #6 is Theoni Mihalopoulos from Crowfoot Travel in Calgary. Congratulations Theoni!
Every Wednesday in Travelweek Daily, we’re posting an article from Travelweek’s archives, spanning the years 1973 – 2023. Guess the correct year the story ran, and you could win a $50 Amazon gift card. There’s a new headline and a new chance to win every single week.
