Nav Canada seeks higher service fees Last Updated Thu, 15 May 2003 16:01:33 OTTAWA - Nav Canada said Thursday it needs to increase the fees it charges by an average of 6.9 per cent to cope with the downturn in air traffic and bad debt expenses. The non-profit company that operates the country's air navigation system said the fee hike will increase the cost of a one-way ticket from Toronto to Ottawa by 65 cents. The cost of a Vancouver-to-Montreal one-way flight would go up by $1.28. "Unfortunately, we face further traffic declines due to the war in Iraq and SARS," Nav Canada president and CEO John Crichton said. "And anticipating an accumulated shortfall of $176 million after two years, we've exhausted our ability to help ease the burden of the downturn on our customers," he said. The higher fees Nav Canada is seeking likely won't sit well with the country's airlines, which have been seeking breaks on the fees to help them ride out the downturn in the travel industry. The new charges are slated to come into effect on August 1, with annual and quarterly charges to be implemented on March 1, 2004. The proposal is subject to a 60-day consultation period. *************************************************** The owner of Roger's Trinbago Site/TnTisland.com Roj (Roger James) escape email mailto:ejames@xxxxxxxxx Trinbago site: www.tntisland.com Carib Brass Ctn site www.tntisland.com/caribbeanbrassconnection/ Steel Expressions www.mts.net/~ejames/se/ Site of the Week: http://www.cso.gov.tt TnT Webdirectory: http://search.co.tt *********************************************************