Through the process of privatization and commercialization, several entities were created in Canadian air transport which imposed user charges on air travel. COVID-19 highlighted a major flaw with this system: the difficulty of cost recovery with limited users. Subsequently, post-pandemic charges on air travel in Canada have increased upwards of thirty percent. With risks of future demand shocks, along with incentives to make more sustainable travel decisions the user-pay system risks reducing the contribution of air transport to Canada's socio-economic development and burdening air travellers through fewer travel options and higher prices. There have been several calls for reform to the Canadian air transport industry but with many entities in the aviation ecosystem, preferences and priorities for policy objectives differ greatly. To determine various stakeholder objectives of managing an air transportation ecosystem, a Value-Focused Thinking approach is used by interviewing experts and analyzing policy documents through a thematic and text-analysis. Though stakeholder preferences vary, findings suggest overarching objectives (ie. competition, viability and governance) overlap significantly. The elicitation of objectives through a robust research process provides a comprehensive framework that can assist air transport policy decision making, by working backwards from shared objectives that can yield agreed upon alternatives.
