Aerial highway bypasses GTA

[kEiThZ]

From what I understand one of the big advantages to the Pickering Airport is the offloading of some of the cargo flights into Pearson. With the Pickering Airport, you would have direct access to the 407, and only be a short hop away from the 401. Also, it wouldn't be that difficult to build a freight line to either the CN or CP mainlines. Put all of those together, and you have a pretty decent intermodal facility.

Most of the stuff arriving by air rarely gets on a train after. It's usually time-sensitive enough to get a truck.

Pickering airport is meant to consolidate GA traffic in the GTA. Relieving Pearson is a long ways away. I think it's quite likely that Hamilton could turn out to be the the Pearson reliever instead of Pickering. Just depends on what the areas demographics and demand profiles are, in the catchment areas. Pickering would consolidate traffic from Buttonville, Oshawa and Markham to start. And could probably facilitate the closure of the Island airport.

 

[kEiThZ]

An expansion of Downsview and Billy Bishop would be feasible but it would require political will and courage and I don't know if we have that in this city.

Downsview occupies more land than Chicago's Midway Airport (aka "the World's busiest square mile"). Midway handles 18 Million passengers a year. At Downsview you could build a facility with a 20 Million Capacity. If the Runway at Billy Bishop was lengthened you could increase the capacity of that airport to about 10 Million a year (I base this on the fact that London City (UK) with its 4,000 ft single runway has a maximum capacity of 8 million).

With an expansion of Downsview and Billy Bishop together you could handle about 30 Million passengers a year which is about what Pearson currently handles annually and you could achieve this with airports that would have direct access to the Subway, in the case of Downsview, and Streetcars, in the case of Billy Bishop. This is way more preferable than building an Airport way out in Pickering. If ever built Pickering would become like Mirabel, another white elephant of use only for Cargo flights.

Expanding urban airports though is a pretty difficult manoeuvre, especially in the case of Downsview, which is pretty much inactive for all intensive purposes.

I think Pickering would be great for 3 things: Cargo, GA, and one or two regional carriers who aren't very reliant on transfers. WestJet comes to mind.

And even if it is "just a cargo airport", that's fine. Cargo is a huge percentage of the total flights in and out of Pearson. Take away those, and you've opened up a lot more flight times for passenger aircraft. Pearson will be facing both a terminal space restriction and a runway availability restriction in the coming decade or so. Removing a good chunk of cargo flights to and from Pearson solves one of those problems. The other one can be solved by building a new Terminal 2.

1) Downsview is not going to happen. It's a privately owned airfield. Who's going to pony up enough to buy out not just the airport but also the Bombardier plant and possibly the military facilities on site? Downsview's airfield is used for flight testing, customer delivery, and for support to military aircraft transiting through. It won't be cheap to move all that. And there's a real possibility if push came to shove, that Bombardier may choose to shutter the plant and relocate all the jobs to Montreal. And if anybody has ever glanced at a VFR Terminal Area chart, you'd see that Downsview could prove to be a bit bothersome in dealing with Pearson's airspace at any sort of appreciable traffic level.

2) I think people misunderstand how cargo operations work. There are dedicated operations, sure. But a huge amount of cargo is flown in the bellies of scheduled airlines. Particularly, internationally. Emirates for example, is famous for using cargo to bolster profits and make unconventional routings from Dubai possible. This means that a successful cargo hub generally must be a decent passenger hub as well. And the hub has to be close to where the customers are. No point flying to Pickering only to have cart the cargo to Mississauga through 401 traffic.

3) Expansion of the Island airport is possible. But there's no way the residents there would tolerate jets. Unfortunate, because there are probably turbofans which are quieter than the turboprops operating from there, but ignorance is tough to overcome.

 

[kEiThZ]

One thing to remember about Downsview is that the airport was sold in the early '90s to DeHavilland (now part of Bombardier) for $1. Bombardier quite likes that it is the only user of the airport and wants to keep it that way.
When I was stationed at CFB Toronto in the mid-90s the landing fees for ga aircraft set by Bombardier at Downsview was about 4x what Perason was charging. This was done to distract any potential users of the airport, I'm certain their attitude hasn't changed since then.

Not just landing fees but PPR. Can't just plunk down cause you feel like it.

I don't blame BBD. Hosting GA would mean inconvenience for their flight test schedule or customer delivery flights. Last thing you want is having to accomodate a Cessna doing 50 knots with a bunch of Q400s shooting an approach at 100 knots.

 

[kEiThZ]

I fear Pickering will happen, but I think it would be a huge mistake at this point. Spending hundreds of millions of dollars (if not more) to build a greenfield general aviation airport is crazy. Funding it through the landing fees at Pearson that are already among the highest anywhere is even worse. If Buttonville really needed to close, Markham, Brampton, and Oshawa could likely pick up the slack more reasonably.

It's not hundreds of millions of dollars. The airport is initially quite small. Tens of millions maybe. I'd be shocked if it crossed $100 million. Actually, I'd be shocked if it crossed $50 million, looking at the initial plans they have.

And consolidating the traffic is actually a good idea. Development is encroaching on Oshawa as well making flight training more difficult over there. Far better to consolidate traffic from Oshawa, Markham and Buttonville in Pickering.

 

[kEiThZ]

I think the best thing to be done with Downsview is close it and relocate Bombardier. Can't see Pearson loving expanded traffic at Downsview when airspace wise that puts them in the same/worse position as they had with Buttonville, and as noted above the City has been allowing the industrial character of the area to be replaced with residential (see Sunrise Propane). The elephant in the room in the "extend Sheppard line west of Yonge" call is that the area with the most developable open space to finance such a project is west of Downsview station, i.e. the airport.

I can't really get on board this pilot's obsession - there is serious pushback against the use of corp jets (see RIM, which is disposing of one of theirs).

Pilot's obsession? GA like any other activity needs space that's within a reasonable distance from the city. Some it is flight training. So it is flying execs. Some of it flying cargo. A lot of those bizjets are often used to move time-sensitive parts or materiel. RIM may be getting rid of their corporate jets, but that doesn't mean most other companies are. That serious pushback happens during recessions. And once the recessions end, so does the anti-corporate jet sentiment.

I'd support buying out Bombardier if there's an honest cost-benefit analysis taking into account that Bombardier and its supporting contractors and supporting OEMs (like Pratt and Whitney Canada in Mississauga) provide some of the highest paid industrial employment in this city. Paying billions to get them to relocate (most likely out of the GTA altogether) and risk the loss of thousands of high paying aerospace jobs in the region should only be supported if developing Downsview will create other well-paid sustainable jobs in the long run. Trading these industrial jobs for commercial airport mcjobs or one time residential construction jobs will leave this city worse off, in the long run.

Make no mistake about it. If Downsview is shuttered, it'll be the end of the aerospace sector in Toronto. And Bombardier is only the tip of that iceberg.

 

[Dan416]

I agree we shouldn't kick Bombardier out. But isn't there a way to accommodate both Bombardier and some GA traffic at Downsview?

 

[kEiThZ]

I agree we shouldn't kick Bombardier out. But isn't there a way to accommodate both Bombardier and some GA traffic at Downsview?

A few birds maybe. But nowhere near what's needed to replace Buttonville. Not to mention the concerns of nearby residents.

 

[TOareaFan]

Pilot's obsession? GA like any other activity needs space that's within a reasonable distance from the city. Some it is flight training. So it is flying execs. Some of it flying cargo. A lot of those bizjets are often used to move time-sensitive parts or materiel. RIM may be getting rid of their corporate jets, but that doesn't mean most other companies are. That serious pushback happens during recessions. And once the recessions end, so does the anti-corporate jet sentiment.

RIM getting rid of one corporate jet is nothing more than a PR move. Company losing money, stock price hammered, future not clear.....yet they own two jets and it looks like fat cats flying around at the cost of shareholders and employees. It has/is no reflection of the popularity of corporate jets in the whole (which is increasing).

Ironically, the type of flying that is necessary in a company like RIM, this move to shed a jet will likely cost them money not save them money.