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Pickering Airport (Transport Canada/GTAA, Proposed)

While we could (and should regardless) look at expansion of Hamiton and K-W airports, or even London for that matter. Any expansion of air traffic in the west will only add to the congested roads in the West. (Note that the West has the QEW, 401, 403, and 407 running E-W and are already congested while the East has the 407 and the 401). A alternate option might be to open an airfield in Niagara to serve the wester golden horseshoe and grow Niagara Falls' tourism business.

However as stated given the congestion already in the West an Eastern airport may be the best option be it Pickering or somewhere else. Imagine living in Ajax/Whitby/Peterborough and being able to access an airport without having to cross the GTA
 
Imagine living in Ajax/Whitby/Peterborough and being able to access an airport without having to cross the GTA
The challenge is that Toronto is not London or New York, and even with 2031-level populations, the GTA will still only support one real "intercontinental" airport... there will only be a market for a certain number of long-haul flights per day (or week) to destinations like Delhi or Berlin or Tokyo and so on.

At those lower numbers of aircraft movements, I can't see the carriers splitting their services between two Toronto-area international airports. I imagine the international carriers would probably prefer to collectively cluster in one airport or the other to take fuller advantage of access to connecting flights to the rest of Canada, and all things being equal they'd probably prefer to avoid a move, so barring a Mirabel-style directive to move I'd expect Pearson to remain home to the overseas flights and some of the less-heavily-trafficked US destinations. That leaves Pickering with mostly flights to Canadian destinations and a few of the high-frequency American ones that could support split service to both Pearson and Pickering, like New York, Chicago and maybe the likes of LAX and Atlanta.

Anyway, for residents living in Scarborough, Markham, Ajax etc., yes, a Pickering Airport will be a new, closer option for a hefty proportion of the potential airline trips. But if you live in Milliken and are flying to Hong Kong, for instance, you'll probably always be flying out of Pearson. Ditto if you're in Oshawa and want to fly direct to Houston.
 
The fact that the word "rail" is not mentioned once in the exec summary is disconcerting.

How would a Quebec-Windsor high-speed rail line affect air travel demand? What are the costs of building this line compared to building the new airport? If the line were built to serve Kitchener-Waterloo, it would come within a few kilometres of YKF...

Studying this seems like a no-brainer to me.
 
I don't understand how Pearson can be at capacity on its current site. Consider these Google maps:

Pearson Airport - 30 million travellers per year

Atlanta International Airport - 90 million travellers per year


Pearson seems about the same size, so why is its capacity so much lower?
I'm not sure what Atlanta's upper capacity is ... but I thought Pearson's was 50 to 55-million.

The key difference is that Atlanta can operate with 5 runways 100% of the time - unless the airport is closed. Pearson can only operate with 3, and in some weather conditions, 2.

I don't know about these two airports in particular, but some airports have much higher capacities with a lower number of aircraft movements, because most planes that fly into them are jumbo jets, compared to short-haul flights. Think Heathrow.
 
The challenge is that Toronto is not London or New York, and even with 2031-level populations, the GTA will still only support one real "intercontinental" airport... there will only be a market for a certain number of long-haul flights per day (or week) to destinations like Delhi or Berlin or Tokyo and so on.

At those lower numbers of aircraft movements, I can't see the carriers splitting their services between two Toronto-area international airports. I imagine the international carriers would probably prefer to collectively cluster in one airport or the other to take fuller advantage of access to connecting flights to the rest of Canada, and all things being equal they'd probably prefer to avoid a move, so barring a Mirabel-style directive to move I'd expect Pearson to remain home to the overseas flights and some of the less-heavily-trafficked US destinations. That leaves Pickering with mostly flights to Canadian destinations and a few of the high-frequency American ones that could support split service to both Pearson and Pickering, like New York, Chicago and maybe the likes of LAX and Atlanta.

Anyway, for residents living in Scarborough, Markham, Ajax etc., yes, a Pickering Airport will be a new, closer option for a hefty proportion of the potential airline trips. But if you live in Milliken and are flying to Hong Kong, for instance, you'll probably always be flying out of Pearson. Ditto if you're in Oshawa and want to fly direct to Houston.
Canada has some of the highest runway landing fees in the world (Pearson second in '03/'04, first in '05). I'm sure many carriers would be happy to move some or all service to a cheaper runway.

Also, you are focusing solely on the passenger side. Pearson handled 482,518 tonnes of cargo and 31.9 million passengers last year. About 17.2 million were international travel. Pickering could easily become a domestic and cargo hub.

The fact that the word "rail" is not mentioned once in the exec summary is disconcerting.

How would a Quebec-Windsor high-speed rail line affect air travel demand? What are the costs of building this line compared to building the new airport? If the line were built to serve Kitchener-Waterloo, it would come within a few kilometres of YKF...

Studying this seems like a no-brainer to me.
HSR definately might reduce Canada-US flights, but for people going 'overseas' it doesn't really help. If you could get 20% of international flights to take the train, you might save 5-10% capacity over the short-term, but that'll just buy 3-7 years of growth. I'm pro-HSR, but we'll still end up needing a second airport.
 
HSR definately might reduce Canada-US flights, but for people going 'overseas' it doesn't really help. If you could get 20% of international flights to take the train, you might save 5-10% capacity over the short-term, but that'll just buy 3-7 years of growth. I'm pro-HSR, but we'll still end up needing a second airport.

It doesn't really matter what HSR's impact on the TOTAL demand would be; rather, it's the influence that it would have on peak demand. My understanding is that the peak period travel crunch (ie. the limiting capacity) is driven by domestic or short-haul international commuter flights. If you could eliminate 50% of that (which is certainly feasible if HSR travel times are competitive), that's a huge change to peak demand.

Furthermore, with HSR to YKF, you could re-route many low-cost international flights (likely charters). The train could even be code-shared with the flight, as is done in Europe.
 
It doesn't really matter what HSR's impact on the TOTAL demand would be; rather, it's the influence that it would have on peak demand. My understanding is that the peak period travel crunch (ie. the limiting capacity) is driven by domestic or short-haul international commuter flights. If you could eliminate 50% of that (which is certainly feasible if HSR travel times are competitive), that's a huge change to peak demand.

Furthermore, with HSR to YKF, you could re-route many low-cost international flights (likely charters). The train could even be code-shared with the flight, as is done in Europe.
When do you think Pearson operates at peak demand? There is the Night Flight Restrictions from 12:30am until 6:30am, then morning peak from 7am to 10am and afternoon peak from 3pm to 8pm. That's 9 hours out of an 18 hour day. There shouldn't be much difference between peak flights per hour and total, and it's in the off-peak where most future growth is predicted to occur.

419,044 aircraft movements = 1148 flights per 18-hour day = ~64 flights per hour

You are also assuming that HSR ridership would directly relate to reduction in planes. Unless HSR is pushing the route ridership below the cost-recovery point, flights won't be cancelled, they'll just fly less full. I'd guessed that 40% of "international" travel was to the US and 60% overseas. The 50% reduction in short-haul you suggest is the same as the 20% reduction in international flights I was speaking of. As I said, I'm pro-rail, it's just not an end-all-and-be-all to our transportation needs.
 
A Niagara airport would be an interesting option to pursue. While I have environmental concerns, it's a region of 500k people and will see up to 30million visitors annually in the near future (obviously not all are visiting by plane, but giving people the option to fly in to a Niagara Airport might shift some percentage to air travel, and might entice more long haul visitors). I know Hamilton is being considered as the de facto Niagara airport, but until there is a much stronger and more prominent link between Niagara and Hamilton that makes it easier and enticing for all different types of passengers to have access, it will never be able to satisfy as Niagara's airport.
 
I don't understand how Pearson can be at capacity on its current site. Consider these Google maps:

Pearson Airport - 30 million travellers per year

Atlanta International Airport - 90 million travellers per year


Pearson seems about the same size, so why is its capacity so much lower?

In terms of places the government could invest billions of dollars, I feel there are many transportation projects that'd be more useful than a Pickering airport.

As Nfitz said Pearson's peak capacity is projected to be about 60 million. Doing some quick math Atlanta Hartsfield moved 970 000 aircraft in 2010 on 5 runways (not sure how well used runway 10/28 is as it seems like the odd ball out) while Pearson moved about 450 000 aircraft on 3, (mainly sometimes 2) runways. Works out to roughly 200 000 aircraft per year per runway. Pearson is slightly under that number but we need to keep in mind that at times they need to switch to the 2 North-South runways, thus limitiing capacity.

Knowing now what the general capacity of any given runway is, passenger capacity is then limited by the ratio of passenger vs cargo flights and aircraft mix. Many large jets bring high passenger numbers, smaller planes bring lower passenger numbers. Something to keep in mind, Pearson still has some private flights coming out of it as well as flights that serve smaller communities in Northern Ontario, not sure what the mix is at Atlanta.
 
Well Pearson will be building their sixth runway in the near future right? But as I recall reading from the GTAA's PDFs regarding the plan they said that the runways operate in pairs, not independently so once the sixth is done it would be like 3 pairs.

Still, doesn't Heathrow only have one runway?
 
Well Pearson will be building their sixth runway in the near future right? But as I recall reading from the GTAA's PDFs regarding the plan they said that the runways operate in pairs, not independently so once the sixth is done it would be like 3 pairs.
I don't think there's any imminent plans to build the 6th runway ... but even if they did, they'd only be able to use 4 at once - or 2 at once when they need to use

Still, doesn't Heathrow only have one runway?
They've had 2 main runways since shortly after WW2. They've slowly eliminated the crosswind runways over the years. Plans for a 3rd main runway were recently cancelled by the Tories.

Heathrow, although it has about twice the number of passengers as Pearson, has a similar number of take-offs and landings.
 
Well Pearson will be building their sixth runway in the near future right? But as I recall reading from the GTAA's PDFs regarding the plan they said that the runways operate in pairs, not independently so once the sixth is done it would be like 3 pairs.

Still, doesn't Heathrow only have one runway?

A sixth runway running parallel to 05/23 on the north end of the airport is in the long term plan (some time in the 2020's IIRC). At that point, yes, the runways will operate in pairs with main operation being the 4 E-W runways operating with one doing landings and the other doing take offs. I think the Northern pair will primarily serve the Cargo operations (UPS and FedEx) as well as Terminal 3 and GA which operate out of the North, while the south pair will serve Terminal 1
 
Also, you are focusing solely on the passenger side. Pearson handled 482,518 tonnes of cargo and 31.9 million passengers last year. About 17.2 million were international travel. Pickering could easily become a domestic and cargo hub.

Isn't there already a large service infrastructure in the West near Pearson (i.e. Brampton) geared toward cargo handling from Pearson?
 
The fact that the word "rail" is not mentioned once in the exec summary is disconcerting.

How would a Quebec-Windsor high-speed rail line affect air travel demand? What are the costs of building this line compared to building the new airport? If the line were built to serve Kitchener-Waterloo, it would come within a few kilometres of YKF...

Studying this seems like a no-brainer to me.

Similarily, I could see a scenario in which a HSR spur would pass close to Ottawa's airport, thereby increasing the feasibility of increasing the number of international flights into Ottawa and taking a bit of pressure off Dorval and for Pearson (for those with final destinations on the east side of the GTA or don't mind taking a cheaper, but longer flight/train).
 

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