Oh oh....maybe the Liberals are serious about no expansion

[blues deville]

Some forward thinking people should have dug out more subways over the last few years and dumped the soil into Lake Ontario building a new man made island airport far away from the yuppies. Of course, someone would have immediately built more condos on the old YTZ and we'd be no further ahead.

When Montreal built their subway system in the 60's, all of the earth removed went to built Expo 67 and the islands in the st Lawrence river. Jean Drapeau had some vision about the future of his city. I'm still waiting for Toronto to wake up.

[Super 80]

As long as the urban left has a stranglehold on City Hall and holds influential offices at the provincial and federal level Toronto in general is a lost cause. If an undertaking doesn't further the cause of building high-density slums, aggravating motorists or achieving a symbolic environmental outcome at spectacular cost it will not be permitted to exist.

[boestar]

Some forward thinking people should have dug out more subways over the last few years and dumped the soil into Lake Ontario building a new man made island airport far away from the yuppies. Of course, someone would have immediately built more condos on the old YTZ and we'd be no further ahead.

When Montreal built their subway system in the 60's, all of the earth removed went to built Expo 67 and the islands in the st Lawrence river. Jean Drapeau had some vision about the future of his city. I'm still waiting for Toronto to wake up.

Damn near everything south of front street is essentially fill. Front st was, once up on a time, on the water front

[ng78]

What is the cost of the required expansion? Who pays for it? Are the tax payers on the hook for $1,000,000,000 or so? What is the net benefit of such an expense? All the issues discussed have centred around environmental or NIMBY issues, and they are very important. But I haven't seen any meaningful discussions concerning the cost of the expansion, who pays for it, what ROI is on the project, etc. I'm not sure if this is the best place to put $1,000,000,000 or so of public money.

[DEFCON]

There's going to be a need in the not so distant future for federal infrastructure projects to get underway. Little T has already said he plans to get into some serious deficit spending to fund pet projects. Perhaps the runway extension project will find its way onto the list?

Boestar spoke to the issue of ‘fill’, which gave me an idea. If we’re going to spend some money; would a plan to extend 26 by 5000’ get the oppositions blessing if the runway threshold was relocated 1/2 mile further west? If some real fiddling was acceptable, a new 26 could be built 1/2 a mile south of the current location. All in all, that approach would seem to address a number of local concerns, allow Porter and competitors to do their thing and provide much needed support for a quality Canadian built aircraft.

[dagger]

The Series is not going anywhere until it gets an order for a large, legacy airline. DL is now the best hope. And it won't get that order from operating out of YTZ.

[rudder]

The Series is not going anywhere until it gets an order for a large, legacy airline. DL is now the best hope. And it won't get that order from operating out of YTZ.

I agree about YTZ (conditional offers with unrealistic conditions are not the foundation for conversion to firm orders and firm revenue for BBD).

But I think that BBD's best chance for a decent sized North American order is from JetBlue (firm orders could be 50+). Next best chance is AC (although the firm side might only be 25). Both would involve disposal of existing E190/195 fleets. DL does not seem like a logical customer given their propensity to buy used aircraft at bargain basement prices. I think that UA may be a potential customer but thus far has simply toyed with BBD to get better pricing from Boeing on the -700's.

I cannot imagine any significant North American customer that will be signing up without an effective 20-30% discount off of list price.

[Super 80]

Very little toying is required at the moment to get a deal out of Boeing on the NG.

[MD2]

dagger,

YTZ may not be as relevant to Delta, but it is relevant to other carriers around the world interested in its urban operations suitability, especially in Europe. Saying no to C series at YTZ is like saying this airplane is not good enough for our quality of life in Canada, but you should go ahead and buy it in other countries!