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AC and the Toronto Port Authority


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Guest rattler

On a sep. note there will be an AIF at the airport. I guess if Porter is the only carrier their landing fees etc. will not be enough to pay for the new ferry etc.

NOTICE – Airport Improvement Fee

Pursuant to Section 51 of the Canada Marine Act, notice is given that the Toronto Port Authority will be charging a $15.00 (excluding GST) Airport Improvement Fee or AIF at the Toronto City Centre Airport. This fee will be charged to enplaning (departing) passengers on scheduled commercial flights from the airport effective Sept 15, 2006. Further information may be obtained on request and persons interested in making representations to the Port Authority regarding the subject of this notice may do so in writing to:

Alan Paul

Toronto Port Authority

60 Harbour St

Toronto, ON

M5J 1B7

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No, they are still going after the port authority - no idea what they plan on getting out of it. Other than another party telling Jazz the port has the right to require an opperating agreement to use the airport.

There are some airfield improvements the TPA wants to embark on over the next few years. That is probably the purpose of the AIF.

And ofcourse, what self respecting airport authority doesn't have an AIF dry.gif

The ferry was paid for by the out of court settlement over the termination of the bridge. You know, the $35 million paid out by the taxpayers NOT to build a $20 million dollar bridge. That is going to be Millers legacy.

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Guest rattler

Oh, I can confirm C-GLQB is for Porter. C is still unpainted.

Good deal, I guess the registration will appear on the TC site once the lawyers have done their work. Re startup. I noted earlier that the press release re the Res. system was talking about startup later this year rather than late fall. Is this a change or just poor wording on the part of those who wrote the press release (supplier release not Porter)? The two could mean the same.

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Guest rattler

In any case the foreign ownship laws should be tossed. No longer serve any purpose. The need for them died when Domestic route protection was done away with.

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I agree - but I doubt it will ever happen - same with the US.

The CTA and their search for excessive foreign involvement with Platinum Jet Air was an endless source of trouble for them. The prolonged investigation is a substantial part of the reason they never got of the ground.

There were however significant other issues - regulatory and business related.

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Jazz Sings the Port Authority Blues

August 09, 2006 - Globe and Mail

John Barber

Like a chess game played through the looking glass, the uncertain process of reviving commercial aviation at the Toronto island airport took another strange turn yesterday when Air Canada Jazz abruptly abandoned its recently announced plan to resume a busy schedule of flights later this month.

Blaming the Toronto Port Authority for refusing it permission to resume flights to Ottawa and Montreal, Jazz president Joseph Randell accused the embattled agency of taking extraordinary measures to protect island-based start-up Porter Airlines from competition.

"It is obvious that by denying Jazz fair and equal access to these public facilities, the TPA has decided to create a virtual monopoly on behalf of a single corporate interest," Mr. Randell said in a statement.

After being evicted from the airport last February by a company controlled by Porter Airlines founder Robert Deluce, Jazz signed up with another landlord and announced a flight schedule much more ambitious than its dwindling efforts of recent years, clearly attempting to spoil Porter's launch. The airline said that it abandoned the plan because the TPA refused to approve its new lease unless it agreed to a confidential operating plan that restricted its activities at the airport.

"Jazz will continue to pursue this matter through all appropriate avenues, including through the courts, and remains committed to returning to the Toronto City Centre Airport as soon as possible," Mr. Randell said.

Mr. Deluce welcomed the news yesterday, saying that Porter has willingly agreed to a long-term operating agreement. "Porter is willing to make the type of long-term commitment to the airport that Air Canada never has," Mr. Deluce said in a statement yesterday. "We are the only scheduled airline in the last 20 years willing to make [the island airport] its operating base."

TPA president Lisa Raitt was unavailable for comment yesterday.

As the corporate dogfight recedes, temporarily at least, the TPA's political problems are once again coming to a head. With only one of a required seven directors currently sitting on its board, it is facing judgment later this month by Roger Tassé, a retired senior bureaucrat appointed by the Harper government to investigate its controversial past.

In particular, the Tassé review is expected to reveal how and why the previous Liberal government spent $35-million to halt earlier plans to build a bridge to the island airport -- only to see the same expansion plan, minus the bridge, resurrected almost immediately.

Other skeletons are rattling just as hard. One is the brand-new, albeit empty and abandoned terminal for the defunct Rochester ferry, which the TPA continues to carry on its books as a $10-million "asset" while it plows even more money -- $15-million -- into a new ferry and terminals for the still-moribund airport, which closed to commercial aviation six months ago after years of decline.

Most critically, the authority must prove that it meets statutory requirements that it be self-financing, an impossibility given its recent history of declining revenue and upwelling red ink.

The federal government's decision not to appoint any new members to the authority's almost-empty board is another sign of its current vulnerability. With only one person -- provincial appointee and chair Michele McCarthy -- currently serving on the board, and the city declining its right to nominate one member, there is effectively nobody to defend the agency against the death sentence many observers expect from the Harper government.

With Mr. Tassé expected to report by Aug. 28, that judgment could come before either Mr. Deluce or his Halifax-based rivals ever launch their first plane. But whatever shape the struggling airport's management takes, it is difficult to imagine that it will continue the bizarre game of chasing away desperately needed business.

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