Jazz | Backgrounder To YTZ Expansion

[Guest Operation Bomberclad]

Turbulent times

New wrinkles in island airport expansion plans

BY EDWARD KEENAN AND JOEL McCONVEY

The just-announced fire sale of regional carrier Air Canada Jazz has thrown yet another twist into the highly acrimonious saga of island airport expansion. Allan Sparrow of Community AIR (Airport Impact Review), which opposes expansion plans, thinks the Jazz sale "probably changes the whole equation."

"One of the things that motivated Robert Deluce [who wants to start a new regional carrier out of the island] to look at the island airport was that it's hard to get [departure] slots at Pearson, and they're very expensive," says Sparrow. "All of a sudden, quite a number of slots are becoming available to somebody at a discounted price."

Air Canada only announced the sale on Feb. 6, but media reports have already speculated that one potential buyer could be Deluce, whose family owned Air Ontario, one of Jazz's predecessors. Deluce heads up Regional Airlines Holdings Inc. (REGCO), the new airline that would be based on the island and fly to destinations in Ontario and the northeastern U.S. Of the 17 destinations REGCO hopes to serve, 15 are currently served by Jazz, including Montreal, Ottawa, Sudbury, Thunder Bay, Timmins, Windsor, Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Boston and Washington, D.C.

"Deluce himself was jumping up and down at [federal transport minister David] Collenette four years ago," Sparrow says, "demanding that at the time Air Canada acquired Canadian, the regional function should be split off so that people like [him] could obtain it and run it."

http://www.eye.net/eye/issue/issue_02.13.03/news/airport.html

Same publication with some really good reporting on the history of Air Ontario, and the position of AC Jazz in the transborder market, though it does not report on the vast amount of funding the Export Development Corporation gives to Comair in comparison to their Canadian competition:

http://www.eye.net/eye/issue/issue_11.21.02/news/airport.html

Insider knowledge on municipal politics in Toronto as regards the Toronto Island Airport expansion:

http://webhome.idirect.com/~jleeson/island_airport_dots.htm

Article critical of proposed expansion, scroll to bottom for graphs:

http://www.communityair.org/Problems_Deluce.htm