OTTAWA — Canada’s struggling airports expect a visa requirement the federal government has lifted will attract new carriers and travellers and help pad their bottom line.

It will increase travel and obviously benefit retail and concession sales, said Trish Krale, spokeswoman with the Greater Toronto Airports Authority, adding, the airport has been lobbying for this for years.

Foreign travellers going through Vancouver International Airport en route to or from the U.S. will no longer need a Canadian transit visa, the government announced this week.

Only nationals from the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand and Taiwan travelling with Philippine Airlines, China Airlines and Cathay Pacific Airways are eligible to participate right now.

Flights from China will be included on a trial basis.

But the government expects other carriers and airports will soon be added.

Air Canada hopes to be included, said spokeswoman Isabelle Arthur.

The Vancouver Airport Authority’s Tony Gugiotta said he’s in talks with new carriers to make many California routes transit to Vancouver first.

“If there is a daily international flight that ads service to Vancouver, it is worth about 220 jobs a year,” he said.

The government’s announcement comes as passenger traffic continues to decline. In Montreal, traffic dropped by 8.2% this spring, while in Vancouver numbers plummeted by 14.6% in May compared to the same period last year.

An identical transit waver program in the U.S. has been suspended since 2003, part of post-9/11 efforts to improve aviation security.

But Alykhan Velshi, spokesman for Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, said strong requirements are in placed to make sure “the (security) risk is minimized.”

althia.raj@sunmedia.ca