Porter Airlines Nearing Sale Of Billy Bishop Terminal.....

[Briler]

Actually, everyone residing on the Island pays property taxes at the same rate as every other taxpayer inthe city - based on the Ontario government agency MPAC's valuation.

One exception: the Islander that pays far less than its fair share is the Island Airport - reallly Porter, as the TPA is simply a cost pass-thorugh for Porter. The 94 cents per passenger tentatively agreed upon with the City is far less than should be paid on MPAC's valuaiton.

Costing the City millions each year that it really needs to spend on higher priorities than the Island Airport. A massive direct subsidy of Porter's operations.

What happened was TPA/Porter finally wore down City staff, who had fought impressivley for many years, winning in court even, but not, ultimately seeing a way to actually force an intransigent federal agency to make proper payment.

[Thebean]

Opening up YTZ to head to head competition, rather than keeping it a closed shop for the benefit of one company would exponentially increase whatever economic spin off Porter claims exist.

I'm still waiting for a list of airports located in the top 20 largest cities anywhere in the Americas, Europe or Asia that have anywhere close to the domination enjoyed by Porter in Canada's largest city.

Look at the variety of airlines and destinations available out of London City Center Airport:

http://www.londoncityairport.com/travelandbooking/arrivals

How about NY LaGuardia?

http://www.panynj.gov/airports/flight-status.html?view=&apt=LGA

Washington Reagan?

http://www.metwashairports.com/net/dcaarrivals.aspx?t=ra

Orange County?

http://www.ocair.com/arrivals/

Rio de Janeiro's Santos Dumont?

http://www.aeroportosantosdumont.net/en/santos-dumont-rio-de-janeiro-flight-timetable-schedules

And then there's the enlightened situation in Toronto:

http://www.torontoport.com/Airport/For-Travellers/Arrivals.aspx

It doesn't even pass the giggle test.

It borders on obscene that a valuable taxpayer owned asset such as Toronto City Center Airport should be allowed to be monopolized by a single, privately held company.

Any arguments to the contrary are, at the very least, the views of self-serving monopolists desperate to maintain traffic stifling, artificially high fares for travel when the majority of short haul flights are booked, ie in the 7 to 10 day window prior to departure.

Discounting empty seats when the core market disappears such as right now doesn't cut it. It's pretty safe to say that pricing will disappear on January 5th when business travels starts up again. Then Porter will be back to their practice of extracting over $1,000 for a paltry 450 mile flight to Chicago because, well, just because they can.

The nano second any other airline operated flights from YTZ to MDW or ORD, that price would tumble 30% over night, a monopolist's nightmare.

[Thebean]

dagger, this is the kind of philosophical argument that starts with nothing and ends in nothing. By your argument, there should be no bridges built, no roads built, no tall buildings, nothing new tried, because it's easy to kill any idea. In truth though, these ambivalent remarks bring Air Canada under question with regards to City airport. If Air Canada wants more access, what is it doing to help its expansion? Otherwise why should an airport operator be anxious to give more access to an airline that is threatening its very existence?! As for the airport, various surveys, and especially the growing traffic seem to indicate very high approval rate. And with Toronto growing and increasing events and activities, such as the Pan-Am games, multiple easy accesses are needed.

The infrastructure you mention is accessible by all. Commercial passenger operations at Billy Bishop Airport are monopolized to every single market in the US and Canada within range of a Q400 with the exception of Montreal. Porter wants to extend that monopoly to every airport in North America within range of the C Series aircraft.

No other airline in the world has this sort of commercial advantage. Not one.

I suppose you'd approve of building roads with tax dollars on taxpayer owned land, but placing restrictions to ensure that 85% of traffic on the road was exclusively used by employees or customers of the nearby privately owned manufacturing plant?

[Super 80]

Opening up YTZ to head to head competition, rather than keeping it a closed shop for the benefit of...

Gawd help us all when WestJet's burgeoning transatlantic endeavour starts getting doors slammed in their face. Bean will be apoplectic.

[DEFCON]

"And I know this won't be popular on this site, but the dire impact of climate change is finally getting mainstream attention. Surely short-haul flying, Porter's specialty, has to be looked at when we start searching for practical ways to substantially reduce our carbon footprint, as we must. The last thing we should be doing is investing in infrastructure like airport expansion that requires the burning of fossil fuels to generate a return on that investment."

Are you kidding? How many more environmentally friendly people do you want to stuff into that termite mound you call downtown Toronto Brian Iler?

I am always amazed by the off the deep end attitudes of BEAN & Dagger when it comes to anything CYTZ; interfere with their investment portfolio and poof, there’s a hundred good reasons to kill the COMPETITION that Porter represents to the likes of both AC & WJ. Apparently, neither of these moneymen can get their head around the fact a shrewder business man beat both domestic giants at their own game while they were busy beating up each other up over the triangle.

And finally, if the Island was as poor a business / product offering as some would have you believe, there just would not be an air service from there. It would appear that the travelling public has been speaking to the issue for years; they want the Island service and are apparently prepared to accept it as it is and for the prices being charged.

[MD2]

Are you kidding? How many more environmentally friendly people do you want to stuff into that termite mound you call downtown Toronto Brian Iler?

I am always amazed by the off the deep end attitudes of BEAN & Dagger when it comes to anything CYTZ; interfere with their investment portfolio and poof, there’s a hundred good reasons to kill the COMPETITION that Porter represents to the likes of both AC & WJ. Apparently, neither of these moneymen can get their head around the fact a shrewder business man beat both domestic giants at their own game while they were busy beating up each other up over the triangle.

And finally, if the Island was as poor a business / product offering as some would have you believe, there just would not be an air service from there. It would appear that the travelling public has been speaking to the issue for years; they want the Island service and are apparently prepared to accept it as it is and for the prices being charged.

I think you hit the nail on the head with "interfering with investment portfolio" idea. And of course there is a demand from the City airport, there has always been one. Air Canada crushed City Express before it went too far, and would be very happy if Porter was no more and would pack their bags and go back to Pearson. Same with WestJet that hasn't even applied for slots. Neither of them do anything to actually help expand the City airport either. As long as they stand on the sidelines and complain and let the work be done by some one else, how can they demand access?

At the same time, Community Air, seemingly a grassroot socialist organization, also fights for the big airlines and land developers by proxy. They "flaunt" their numbers to "gullible media", but even if there were 500 people, Porter has over 1500 staff, and will have another 1000 with this expansion. It had over 80,000 supporting its expansion plans and over 20,000 that wrote to city council, not to mention the thousands of people that travel on it every day and enjoy its convenience and service, so what?

... And how much tourism spending is lost to other detinations from Toronto by the Porter convenience. Or how property values - and property tax revenue - are affected by the Island Airport. All we get are flimsy pieces of work produced by Porter or the TPA that are flaunted to gullible media.

A few of us? At one time that might have been true. But not now. Look at the last public meeting on the TPA's new environmental assessment earlier this month. 500 people in a jam-packed room, with no evident support for Porter, and tons of questions as to how jets would impact our waterfront.

Brian Iler, you did not reply. What exactly do you mean by "how much tourism spending is lost to other destinations from Toronto by Porter convenience"? And what about the property values, please explain.

[Thebean]

An airline utterly sheltered from the COMPETITION you are clearly in favor of by rules that all but prohibit COMPETITION? Oh the irony......

I'm not entirely clear on how WestJet, who didn't operate an aircraft type capable of operating into YTZ until mid 2012, and who, in their 18 year history, have incurred a handful of quarterly losses, were "outsmarted" by Porter an airline that has yet to be able substantiate its ability to do anything but cash flow.

As MD2 correctly points out, WJ / WJE has yet to even begin the process of publicly applying for access to the airport. That may or may not occur in 2015 with a further dozen+ tails enter the fleet, with, one can assume, a number of those tails finding their way into central Canada to takeover inefficient short haul ops and to expand the network.

Just as Porter makes the assumption that all airports are open for business, so too does every other airline. Porter would be apoplectic if they were advised that any prospective airport they wanted to fly to was closed to them. Sure, there are some slot controlled airports out there, but in the real world, slots can be purchased just as WJ did at LGA. I doubt Porter will ever be able to "sell" slots that were given to them gratis by the taxpayers of Canada.

Porter isn't exactly working overtime to downplay the supposed $500 million price tag on their terminal, which cost them less than a 10% of that number to build. Porter wants nothing more than to perpetuate the myth it is on solid financial footing so they are quite happy to have that silly number floating around out there. I'm sure they'll be able to buy all the slots they want at LGA and DCA when the terminal is sold at that rather optimistic price point...

I still can't figure out anyone with a mindset that believes that after 7 years or however long Porter has been around that they somehow need "protection" from Air Canada.

I don't recall RIM being granted 85% of the Canadian smart phone market in 2000 when they were first movers. They, like everyone else, had to compete head to head in the real world as others came to the market. Survival of the fittest. What happened? Others innovated and drove the price down whilst making gargantuan profits whilst RIM sat on its arse. Consumers benefitted from normal competitive forces. That's what competition does. Few outside KW are shedding a tear at RIMs misfortune.

Porter itself loves to tell the world how travelers love their service. Surely enough of this love over 7+ years would translate into some loyalty?

Meanwhile, Encore has been operating for a couple of years in open, and infinitely smaller markets in Western Canada and is quite easily holding its own.

WJ is the sole provider in tiny Brandon with one daily n/s to Calgary, but there is nothing stopping Air Canada or even Porter from launching 10x a day anywhere they want in turbo props or even narrow body jets. Recall that WJ operated 737-200's with its "limited Addition" program to Brandon in the late 90's.

Nanaimo, with a population a fraction the size of even downtown Toronto, let alone the entire GTA, has at least 3 commercial airlines operating from its airport, with Air Canada adding direct competition to Encore's double daily Calgary non stops next summer.

But Porter, with a 7 year head start remains so fragile it can't withstand Air Canada or Encore adding a couple flights a day to the largest transborder market in existence, Toronto to New York? Seriously?

Any business that can't withstand competition normal competition shouldn't be in business.

[rudder]

$500 million for the terminal? The aborted IPO valued the entire PAH portfolio at approximately $400 million. The type of math that is used in any matter concerning Porter seems spurious.

[MD2]

Opening up YTZ to head to head competition, rather than keeping it a closed shop for the benefit of one company would exponentially increase whatever economic spin off Porter claims exist.

I'm still waiting for a list of airports located in the top 20 largest cities anywhere in the Americas, Europe or Asia that have anywhere close to the domination enjoyed by Porter in Canada's largest city.

Bean, we have had this conversation many times before, and I doubt you will be any more satisfied or convinced this time, but for the nth time there are multiple differences and multiple facts you are leaving out to support your argument. It is a lesson in history if you will.

1. Toronto City airport has always been open to all airlines. At one point in early 80s, before you became interested in aviation, an airline called City Express made a successful business flying from it, until Air Canada came in and flooded the market with cheaper predatory priced flights that bankrupted the airline.

2. After that, Air Canada gradually reduced service from City airport to consolidate its operation from Pearson. Good cost saving for them, bad for consumers that lost that choice and convenience. They only had 5 flights a day to Ottawa for a total of 10 movements, keep this number in mind.

3. Then came Porter and brought a product that was fresh, environmentally friendly, and people loved it. There were 120 slots available at the time and Porter took the remaining 110 that were on the market and no one wanted, including your precious WestJet. Remember you didn't give it a second's thought you said. I know you didn't have the right aircraft, but nonetheless, no one wanted those slots for years until Porter came along.

4. Air Canada remonstrated and said all of a sudden they wanted more slots, but they were not available. Air Canada/Jazz lost many battles in court to the TPA and Porter, but never actually came in and took the remaining 10 slots.

5. The TPA announced there will be new slots available. Many airlines applied including Porter, Air Canada, Continental, US Airways, etc. still no sign of your beloved WestJet.

6. All US airlines withdrew their applications except Continental which was awarded 16 slots. Air Canada too was awarded some slots.

7. Continental later changed its mind and abdicated its slots which went back into the pool, again your WestJet showed no interest.

8. Those slots were distributed in accordance with TPA guidelines and international normal practices at slot restricted airports. Air Canada remonstrated and sued again. They lost again. In fact they lost ALL their lawsuits and were instructed to pay legal fees to Porter and TPA as well.

9. There are no slots available at the moment, but if an airline was truly interested in serving the people of Toronto from this airport, it would make sense that it should support the expansion application and make a formal request. My guess is that those airlines know they can't make money from the airport and as financially-driven as they are, they don't apply. As convenience as City airport is, it does have its limitations that perhaps it cannot support multiple airlines. I only say this because WestJet, a very financially-driven airline, has never made a formal request but only does drive-by stunts in the media for publicity.

In summary, you can see that there is some history behind this airport that makes it unique, but at the same time, the airport cannot work with imaginary airlines and suppositions, but it has accommodated real applications from REAL airlines.

For years you had complained about the terminal at City airport being owned by Porter. I had explained to you the reason was that Porter was willing to take the risk itself to show its confidence in the business. Now with the immanent sale of the terminal at City airport, that concern of yours should be put to rest. As much as you like to turn any discussion on City airport around, things are very simple and transparent. My appologies to the rest for the long post, I know you like long essays!

THE END!

[MD2]

Porter itself loves to tell the world how travelers love their service. Surely enough of this love over 7+ years would translate into some loyalty?

Meanwhile, Encore has been operating for a couple of years in open, and infinitely smaller markets in Western Canada and is quite easily holding its own.

I like the way you interchange Encore and WestJet when it suits your argument. Encore is NOT a new airline; it is a part of WestJet, operated at lower cost, that carries WestJet passengers, pardon me "guests"!

And loyalty of "guests" only goes so far, once predatory prices are introduced and extra capacity is dumped in the market, all things change. People forget that by pursuing the lowest fare they bring their own demise and eliminate competition in the future. It's not like we haven't seen it before with Air Canada against City Express, Royal, Canada 3000, Roots Air, etc. that created a 13 billion dollars debt for Air Canada in as many years equal to 20% of Argentina's national debt at the time of its financial crisis.

[Thebean]

Encore isn't a new airline? A completely unique fleet, a separate OC, separate operations, separate pilots, separate flight attendants, separate maintenance operations? It's far more separate than you might think.

Speaking of dumping extra capacity, Porter certainly could learn a trick or two when it comes to figuring out the appropriate amount of capacity required in a market.

In 1Q 2014, Porter managed a 57.1% load in it's transborder markets. WJ's load over the same period was 83.1% and if you look at the combined load of ALL transborder carriers, excluding Porter, the average load was 79.8%.

Now.....we know Porter's unit costs are as high, or higher than everyone elses in the market place, so given that situation, the only possible way Porter could legitimately claim to be profitable would be to have correspondingly higher yields, (ie fares), than everyone else.

They certainly aren't doing it by packing their aircraft full of paying customers.

It's just math.

Why should a city be held hostage to artificially inflated prices when, with a simple solution, average fares could be dramatically lowered benefitting everyone?

It defies any sort of common sense. The argument that Porter provides some sort of economic benefit that wildly exceeds the benefit of having lower cost, lower fare operators sharing the publicly owned facility defies all logic.

If that were the case, I would be able to point to countless airports around the world where an airport is utterly dominated by a single airline to the benefit of the local market.

Shockingly, there isn't an example anywhere on the planet, other than possibly North Korea, where this sort of domination exists. Even Koh Samui, owned and developed by Bangkok Air, has competition.

Porter does not own Toronto Island Airport. Taxpayers own the airport.

[Kip Powick]

Bean / MD2................ with respect to your dialogue.....

Please review the law of "Enough Already"

"The more you run over a dead cat, the flatter it gets"

Merry Christmas !!

[MD2]

Encore isn't a new airline? A completely unique fleet, a separate OC, separate operations, separate pilots, separate flight attendants, separate maintenance operations? It's far more separate than you might think.

Not so fast! Encore does not sell its own tickets, and does not compete with WestJet, rather provides lift for WestJet under more favourable conditions, kind of like Rouge for Air Canada. Encore is a convenient way to do business, to run an experiment, to have an airline within an airline, for WestJet. The fact that you don't even acknowledge this says volumes.

[Thebean]

Compared to other "airline within an airline" ventures I can think of, Encore is considerably more autonomous.

You still haven't revealed to us why Porter, after all these years in business, still requires defacto protection from normal competitive forces.

Surely such a rock solid business plan is able to stand on it's own two feet by now?

[DEFCON]

Although Encore may be considerably more autonomous, it does remain, an ‘airline within an airline, as MD2 says.

WJ is big and can use its size as leverage in many ways to dominate that aren’t available to smaller outfits such as Porter. As I recall, some clever fellows noticed a giant competitive void in the Western marketplace and invented WJ. Shortly thereafter, when the opportunity presented itself, WJ abandoned its stated plan and expanded its operations beyond the Manitoba / Ontario border. An unfairly acquired opportunity landed in WJ’s lap when the Feds forced Milton & AC to fold CDN into its own operations, meaning WJ received a giant piece of non-free market protectioneering from the Feds. I don’t remember the Bean complaining when that little piece of manna fell into his plans.

Porter began operations in a market that had more than one airport capable of supporting air carrier services. Porter chose the Island, a platform that was abandoned by AC and largely ignored by WJ until recently. It should also be noted that Porter employed Canadian made aircraft appropriate to their mission plan.

“You still haven't revealed to us why Porter, after all these years in business, still requires defacto protection from normal competitive forces.”

I can’t appreciate Bean’s claim that various aspects of Porter’s operations are unfairly protected from competitive forces. WJ & AC do not represent ‘normal competitive forces’ and other than those protective aspects Porter’s ‘Founders’ considered in advance and included in their game plan, I think Porter has largely stood on its own. As with the WJ model, I think some shrewd business men considered the issues carefully and put a plan in motion that isolated their new operation to a degree from the machinations of the big guys, who now would have us believe, their cake is being stolen? Given a chance, as AC did once before, the large two carriers would kill the Island service altogether, force everyone back to Pearson and price accordingly. How would that scenario advance the public interest in developing and maintaining competition in the greater Toronto marketplace?

[Thebean]

It never ceases to amaze me that there are those out there that believe that WJ never intended to move east of Winnipeg and doing so was somehow inconsistent with the business plan.

Southwest, upon who the general WJ model was based upon, had already moved into BWI prior to WJ's launch was prominently mentioned in the WJ business plan narrative. When asked about the name "WestJet" by prospective Toronto investors and funds and the supposed geographical limitations the WJ name might have, it was quickly pointed out that Southwest was already in Baltimore and slaughtering the market. Any other questions, Mr prospective Investor?

Once WJ had built up critical mass in the west, Thunder Bay, Hamilton and Moncton were on the hit list, (with the latter two chosen to stay out of the way of AC and CP who were duking it out in YYZ and YHZ). Moncton was chosen as the first maritime destination because it was the most centrally located of all the maritime destinations and would, (and did), pull from PEI, NB and the Halifax area.

There wasn't a chance management or shareholders were going to limit WJ growth opportunities, especially in the latter half of 1997 and early 1998 when oil tanked to $16 and the company was still printing money.

WJ developed a very good relationship with the Boeing sales team starting in 1997 and was well aware of what the NG's could do, range wise, having closely watched the integration of Southwest's warbirds into their network. Put it this way. Southwest didn't utilize their NG's on 350 mile sectors......

Trying to operate a viable trans-con service with even -17 powered 737-200's in one class, high density configuration was not in the cards, so talking about it would have been silly.

However, WJ knew very early on the -200's had a limited life expectancy and the replacements would have the legs to do all kinds of things on a n/s basis. In the meantime, expansion would occur 500 miles at a time.

Just like allied planners weren't going to publicize their plans to invade Normandy in 1944, preferring a strategy of deception to keep the Axis powers guessing and focused on the Pas de Calais or even Norway, WJ wasn't about to lay out its plan to expand into Central and Eastern Canada, thus allowing both incumbent and planned ventures the opportunity to counter WJ moves in advance. Better to let them chase ghosts. It amazes me to think there are people out there who can't figure this out.

All those decisions were made and implemented prior to the ultimate collapse of Canadian Airlines in late 1999.

As for anyone pressuring AC to acquire CP, the jury is out. After 14+ years, I have yet to see anything concrete that indicates this was the case. In this day and age, if there was a smoking gun out there, it would have surfaced by now.

Frankly, we all know that CP's Asia/Pacific routes and LHR slots had been coveted for years by AC and after a decade of trench warfare with each side beating the snot out of each other, CP ran out of cash, as well as any support from AMR and was ripe for the pickin'.

It's a wonderful tale to blame others for the inability to successfully merge and profit from the acquisition of CP, especially when the combined entity controlled more than 90% of the domestic market, but after all these years, and countless retirements of people who were front and center in the dealings, nothing has ever turned up that supports that version of history.

Once the merger was in place, the Feds put in some rather lame prohibitions on Air Canada that basically boiled down to their not being allowed to set up their version of an LCC out of YHM for a couple of years.

It was a moot point for WJ as the company was already operating in YHM and had already figured out what worked in YHM and what didn't. Other than YHM, there were basically no limitations on what competitive response would be permitted.

All the Competition Bureau work pretty much dried up on Sept 11 2001, when the Tribunal recessed.

Between that and the presiding judge's health issues, the Tribunal never reconvened and the whole thing pretty much ground to a halt with nothing more than some very loose guidelines being issued a few years later.

If AC wanted to go wingtip to wingtip against WJ, who, at the time had a fleet about the same size as Porter today, it was pretty much open season, which it was. As had always been the case, WJ simply relied on it's significantly lower cost base to fight the battle. WJ knew that it could continue to be profitable throughout the battle and Its competitors couldn't. It was always only a matter of time before someone cried "uncle".

WJ never shied away from going head to head with anyone, provided the net result was profitable. The business plan was robust enough and the low cost economics were bulletproof. WJ could comfortably go ahead to head against AC, CP, C3000, Greyhound, Royal, Vistajet......whomever. It didn't matter, as evidenced by the company's ability to be profitable quarter after quarter for all but five quarters in the WJ's 18 year history.

Porter has been allowed access to every airport within range of its Q400 fleet out of YTZ , but like a spoiled child, hides behind mommy when there's even the slightest whiff of the company having to stand on its own two legs and have to actually compete head to head in an open market.

After all these years, I suspect something north of 95% of Porters capacity operates on protected, artificially restrictive routes, ie out of YTZ. Porter loves to crow about "competition" except as it pertains to competition at its base airport where it hides behind archaic regulations that all but eliminate the necessity of having to compete head to head, wing tip to wing tip, as is the case in every other airport on the planet.

AC is on the record as wanting more slots to offer competitive services, presumably to Ottawa and NYC. As far as I know, WJ /WJE has yet to formally apply for slots, but frankly, what would be the point given the domination by one operator? Unless the runway was extended and jets were allowed, it'd be difficult to put in a commercially viable service under the "85% for me, the rest of youse guys can divvy up the other 15%" policy.

One has only to look at ops at SDU to see the STOL capability of the appropriately equipped 737-800 . Trans con? No, but there's more than enough range to deal with a number of intriguing markets on a higher capacity, limited frequency basis. Porter has to figure out a way to accidentally on purpose lobby to add just enough runway for one specific aircraft type, and not a foot more, in order to preclude having anyone else operate jets in there.

I have no idea what AC's plans might ultimately be at YTZ, but WJ has a long, long history of profitably going into secondary markets, using under utilized airports, starting with YXX in 1997, YHM, YQQ, YBR, YKF, and had the stars lined up, Trenton. Heck. Had the secondary airport in YHZ been available and viable, they'd have been there too. It's not a big stretch, nor inconsistent to see why WJ might want access to another airport in the GTA, far and away, the largest source of O&D passengers in Canada.

WJ has only had the theoretical ability to operate at YTZ for 2 years, so making the claim that WJ ignored YTZ ten years ago is about as meaningful as saying Sony wasn't interested in making MP3 players in 1988 before anyone knew what an MP3 player was and therefore should be banned from making MP3 players in perpetuity.

If WJ was able to devise a business plan that could withstand head to head, wingtip to wingtip competition from the get go in markets a fraction the size of the GTA, it is difficult to see how Porter, after 7+ years of cash flowing, remains so tenuous, so fragile, so weak that it is unable to withstand another airline operating 15 departures a day to various markets, thus allowing consumers a choice of services, without the threat of imminent failure.

I suggest to you that if that is the case, it isn't much of a business in the first place and probably needs to be put out of its misery so more robust, commercially viable operators can be allowed to thrive in a normal competitive environment, as is the case at every other airport on earth.

From a consumer perspective, the only thing that one can be sure of if that were to occur is that average fares would drop precipitously.

And that, dear friends, is precisely what Porter is deathly afraid of and why they lobby so heavily to keep YTZ closed to normal competitive forces.

[John S.]

I always appreciate TheBean's wingtip to wingtip history lessons.

[DEFCON]

Bean...you must be a lawyer.

[Thebean]

I always appreciate TheBean's wingtip to wingtip history lessons.

I guess you had to have been there.....

[John S.]

I guess you had to have been there.....

Oh, I was sort of there but like a lot of us I was playing the game at the minor levels and at a different park.

[Briler]

Good plan. When you're done closing YTZ, your group can work on LGA, EWR, ATL, MIA, LAX, LHR, HGK, NRT, PEK, JFK, DBX, ORD, DFW........

blues deville, perhaps you are not aware of the seriousness of the climate change issue.

Aviation emissions will have to be curtailed – by restricting demand and supply.

Even the Government of Canada in a sobering report, Canada in a Changing Climate, quietly released last June, warned that curtailing greenhouse gas emissions is essential to address climate change:

Emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) from human activity are the main cause of recent global warming and are expected to be the dominant cause of further warming over the coming century, the magnitude of which will be strongly influenced by whether anthropogenic emissions of GHGs continue to grow or are curtailed.

George Monbiot – an articulate and passionate British journalist - in his 2007 best seller Heat, argues that a 90% reduction from 1990 levels is indicated by scientific studies.

Canada is far from achieving the very modest goal it set, based on the 2009 Copenhagen Accord for 2020. Canada has no plan, at this point, to achieve the required 116Mt in reductions.

If we are to curtail greenhouse gas emissions significantly, what is the role of aviation?

Aviation is one of the fastest-growing contributors to world-wide emissions. Unchecked it can grow to a substantial proportion of global emissions, making a climate-safe future difficult or impossible - and undermining reductions achieved in other sectors.

The Canadian government has not, as yet, begun to seriously grapple with the difficult questions of what practical measures are required, and certainly has not focused at all on the role of aviation.

The UK has.

In its report Meeting the UK Aviation target – options for reducing emissions to 2050, its government’s Committee on Climate Change included these comments:

Aviation CO₂ emissions should be capped, either through a global sectoral deal or through including domestic and international aviation emissions in national or regional (e.g. EU) emissions reduction targets [page 11]

The aviation industry should also plan however, for deep cuts in gross CO₂ emissions relative to baseline projections (e.g. for developed country aviation emissions to return to no more than 2005 levels in 2050)

Meeting aviation’s share of necessary CO₂ emissions reductions requires both reducing demand, and restricting supply, by resisting airport expansion.

The United Kingdom’s Aviation Environment Federation recently published an Airports Policy Briefing, Airport Expansion and Climate Change: Is a new runway compatible with climate policy? An excerpt:

The Airports Commission’s analysis built on the work of the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) in modelling the increase in demand for flights that can be accommodated while keeping aviation emissions at a level compatible with the Climate Change Act by 2050. Both the CCC and Airports Commission have stated that demand for flights in the UK will have to be restricted to prevent carbon emissions from the aviation sector overshooting this level.

If a new runway [at Heathrow] is built, the available policy options would be to either dramatically increase the cost of flying (by the UK acting alone) or to restrict capacity available at regional and other South East airports to below today’s levels. Both options would be likely to be politically undeliverable. AEF’s view, therefore, is that rather than constructing any new runways, making best use of existing airport capacity continues to be the best approach to managing future aviation demand.

Accordingly, while we must look long and hard at aviation generally to reduce aviation’s carbon emissions, we must particularly look at short-haul flights, just the type of flights that the Island Airport provides. It follows that capital investment in expanding an airport that does nothing but provide a short-haul flights needs to be very carefully considered.

It's very much like the pipeline fight – if you spend money building capacity, that capacity will be used to increase greenhouse gas emissions.

You can see why climate change concern underlies a great deal of the opposition to the Island Airport expansion.

Britain's CO2 emissions from aircraft approximately doubled between 1990 and 2000, and are projected by the government to double again by 2030. According to a report by the Tyndall Centre,

If the aviation industry is allowed to grow at rates even lower than those being experienced today, the EU could see aviation accounting for between 39% and 79% of its total carbon budget by 2050, depending on the stabilisation level chosen. For the UK, the respective figures are between 50% and 100%.

[MD2]

Brian Iler, it's a long stretch to connect Porter airlines with global warming my dear, especially since its current airplane or the proposed one are much more environmentally advanced than older generation aircraft used by other airlines, including your favorite Air Canada's old Dash 8s. All your grandstanding aside, cars, not to mention big factories, are much bigger contributors than airplanes, which in reality may have a somewhat different effect due to global dimming. But of course that little fact does not help your agenda, does it?!

[Thebean]

It also never ceases to amaze me how opponents of the Island Airport consistently come up with the weakest of arguments to support their position.

[Super 80]

Aviation emissions will have to be curtailed – by restricting demand and supply.

What about restricting emissions from VIA Rail's locomotives based on an engine from the early 60's?

To say nothing of VIA's other "emissions"

[Boney]

This emission stuff is just another rouge to charge a carbon tax. The airlines are viewed as cash cows, so fleece them.

IMHO.