With millions of Canadians already flocking to U.S. airports in search of cheaper flights, the Buffalo airport is launching a marketing campaign to woo even more passengers.

While Canadian airports and airlines have complained about the millions in lost revenues when travellers head south of the border to catch flights, the Americans see it differently.

“It’s not a negative thing. We have been serving the Canadian market since forever,” said Pascal Cohen, senior marketing manager for the Buffalo Niagara International Airport, who was in Toronto on Tuesday to make his pitch to reporters.

Cohen notes that he, like many other residents of Western New York, will go in the opposite direction, using the Toronto airport to fly to international destinations. “You wouldn’t use the Buffalo airport to go to Abu Dhabi,” he said.

“We’re like conjoined twins,” he argued. “It’s a contiguous marketplace. There just happens to be a border.”

But it’s that border that results in cheaper overall costs for flyers, thanks to lower taxes and fees for airport operations in the United States, even when the weaker Canadian dollar is taken into account.

The Buffalo airport is running an ad on an electronic billboard along the Gardiner Expressway, touting “Buffalow fares,” as well a planned television ad that will begin airing next month. It is spending about $100,000 on the campaign that includes a targeted Google Adwords buy.

The Buffalo airport has about 650 flights a week, with non-stop service to 22 cities including sun destinations like Orlando, Fort Lauderdale, Phoenix and Las Vegas.

It also operates very limited service on discount carriers Spirit and Allegiant Air from its Niagara Falls, NY., airport, which has about 15 flights a week.

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The Buffalo airport has launched a website to emphasize potential advantages, using an example of a family of four, vacationing in Orlando, Fla., with cheaper air fares and parking, estimating about $500 in savings.

In addition to the cost savings, Cohen said the airport, which served 5.5 million passengers last year, an estimated one-third Canadians, also focuses on convenience, noting waits to get through security are shorter than in Toronto.

Demand in Buffalo has been on the increase, with new hotels built across from the airport that offer park-and-fly service, catering to Canadians.

Toronto-based Sunwing Airlines is also getting into the game. It is offering non-stop flights from the Buffalo airport this winter to Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic and Cancun in Mexico. Similarly, last year, tour operator Sunquest began selling vacation packages that fly in and out of the Buffalo airport.

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Air Transat tried similar charter routes, but abandoned the operations, after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that resulted in a drop in airline travel.

But Cohen said with Sunwing setting up operations in Buffalo, he said he wouldn’t be surprised to see smaller Canadian carriers like Transat, not affiliated with large airline networks, moving to offer flights, possibly to other destinations in the Caribbean or Europe.

Competition is growing at Pearson airport on leisure routes to Europe among Air Canada’s Rouge and WestJet’s flights to Dublin and Glasgow as well as other carriers like Aer Lingus. “All are competing at a very expensive airport,” Cohen said.