Pickering Airport (Transport Canada/GTAA, Proposed)

[Woodbridge_Heights]

This discussion does come up every few months. I feel that the failure of Hamilton to become the GTA's second airport is due to a number of factors 1) Access. Aside from the two lane Hwy 6 there is no major road access into and out of Munro and in fact there is really only one road in/out. Any congestion will overload that network. 2) Location. Being in the West end, where Pearson is, there is no value to western GTA residents who choose Munro over Pearson. Travel times to the each airport would be the same and Pearson will always have greater options.

A second GTA airport needs to be in the East so that it can serve the 1-2 million residents in the East who currently face a 1 hr+ drive across the GTA just to get to the airport.

 

[kEiThZ]

The cost (political and monetary) of building a shack at CFB Trenton and paying for extra military security must be a fraction of the cost of an entirely new airport at Pickering. That is, if a new airport in the GTA is required at all. The optics alone of building Pickering just to benefit private jets would sink the projet.

Also, wouldn't the private jet crowd prefer to use the Billy Bishop airport?

1) You're assuming the cost is trivial. Having been posted to Trenton and worked at facilities near the Golf Course, I know the area. Let me assure you, it wouldn't be cheap. More to the point, the government does not give a rat's behind about how much cheaper it would be because security is a massive overriding concern. See Fritter's post.

2) Pickering will be a GA airport first. That's not just rich guy private jets. It's small aircraft bringing in personnel and parts for the auto sector. It's employee shuttles. And it's lots of Cessnas that have no other place in the GTA. Have you seen the traffic at Buttonville? That's what will be there at Pickering.

Trenton is being expanded to be the training and home base for JTF2. I can't see the Military wanting to share the area of their most elite special forces with civilians.

Not just JTF2. All of CSOR. All so they can also have access to global airlift capabilities. Massive expansion of the base. While not classified, didn't want to broadcast it. Trenton is a massively strategic facility. There is no way the government would ever tolerate routine civilian flights to the base.

 

[kEiThZ]

The GTA does need a place for charter and private aircraft to use. It needs to be able to handle any and all aircraft. If possible that second airport should take the build of cargo that goes on cargo specific air carriers. (Fedex, etc) That mean that Downsview, Buttonville and the Island airports all are too small.

I have discussed this before. Most cargo today travels in the belly of passenger aircraft. And most cargo specific air carriers use converted passenger aircraft. So for both operational and support reasons there is no desire for cargo Carriers to move away from Pearson.

 

[TOareaFan]

A second GTA airport needs to be in the East so that it can serve the 1-2 million residents in the East who currently face a 1 hr+ drive across the GTA just to get to the airport.

An airport in the East will have zero value to those people if airlines, you know, just keep operating all/most of the flights that people would want to take from Pearson. Several low cost operators have in the past tried to establish in Hamilton....guess what, it failed because the vast majority of flights continue to operate out of Pearson....not sure why that would be any different with an Eastern GTA "2nd airport".

 

[Woodbridge_Heights]

An airport in the East will have zero value to those people if airlines, you know, just keep operating all/most of the flights that people would want to take from Pearson. Several low cost operators have in the past tried to establish in Hamilton....guess what, it failed because the vast majority of flights continue to operate out of Pearson....not sure why that would be any different with an Eastern GTA "2nd airport".

The difference would be the points that I outlined in my previous post. Picture the average resident living halfway between Pearson and Munro, roughly between Oakville/Burlington. To them there is essentially no difference in travel time from their homes to either airport (google maps gives 30-40 mins travel time to both airports with Pearson jumping to 50 mins at peak periods) so obviously they choose the airport with the greater options. It doesn't matter if it's business travel, personal travel, or leisure charters, they have greater choice at Pearson, probably use Pearson most and thus are familiar with it to the point they probably don't even consider Munro. Closer to Pearson the comparison gets worse, further away makes little impact in travel time and thus decision and in fact brings buffalo into the equation.

Now look at the same average resident living in the middle of Scarborough. Same travel times, (roughly as peak period travel time pushes to 1 hr and we all know how the 401 can be), but now lets start pushing east. Travel times begin to grow dramatically and an option in the East becomes a viable alternative. For these residents there is no Buffalo to resort to.

I agree it will require airlines to serve the airport yes, Munro is just stuck between the rock of being to close to Pearson and the hard place of Buffalo airport to be a viable alternative. If WestJet had setup in a Pickering Airport as a LCC I wonder if they would have had more success than they had at Munro, and add in a Sunwing (or similar vacation charter airline) and you could have a viable small airport.

 

[TOareaFan]

The difference would be the points that I outlined in my previous post. Picture the average resident living halfway between Pearson and Munro, roughly between Oakville/Burlington. To them there is essentially no difference in travel time from their homes to either airport (google maps gives 30-40 mins travel time to both airports with Pearson jumping to 50 mins at peak periods) so obviously they choose the airport with the greater options. It doesn't matter if it's business travel, personal travel, or leisure charters, they have greater choice at Pearson, probably use Pearson most and thus are familiar with it to the point they probably don't even consider Munro. Closer to Pearson the comparison gets worse, further away makes little impact in travel time and thus decision and in fact brings buffalo into the equation.

Now look at the same average resident living in the middle of Scarborough. Same travel times, (roughly as peak period travel time pushes to 1 hr and we all know how the 401 can be), but now lets start pushing east. Travel times begin to grow dramatically and an option in the East becomes a viable alternative. For these residents there is no Buffalo to resort to.

I agree it will require airlines to serve the airport yes, Munro is just stuck between the rock of being to close to Pearson and the hard place of Buffalo airport to be a viable alternative. If WestJet had setup in a Pickering Airport as a LCC I wonder if they would have had more success than they had at Munro, and add in a Sunwing (or similar vacation charter airline) and you could have a viable small airport.

why would they leave Pearson again? WestJet virtually controls T3....would you imagine they would offer less service from that consolidated hub or duplicate it at this new airport? And the reason the charters have difficulty operating from remote/smaller airports is that whatever percentage of their business they draw from even more remote places have no way of getting to the new airport.

I get why it is more convenient for the passenger in the Eastern GTA.....but I have no idea why an airline would take the gamble on leaving Pearson to set up in the east......and duplicating service just waters both down.

 

[kEiThZ]

I get why it is more convenient for the passenger in the Eastern GTA.....but I have no idea why an airline would take the gamble on leaving Pearson to set up in the east......and duplicating service just waters both down.

This. There's simply no business case for commercial flights out of Pickering. There can be if slots become expensive at Pearson. But that's a long ways off. Especially since Charters always operate at hours where slots aren't really in demand anyway. At absolute best, we're talking about the odd flight to Ottawa and/or Montreal. But even that's debatable, since a good chunk of the Eastern GTA also falls into Billy Bishop's catchment and can make it there to catch these flights in a resonable amount of time.

There's a business case to build Pickering as a large GA airport. And maybe we'll see some commercial traffic from there. But I can't see any airline moving all, let alone the bulk of its operations to Pickering. Pearson is just too well placed in the GTA to make that case.

 

[TOareaFan]

I think what @kEiThZ and I are saying is simply this......location of flying customers is far less relevant to the success/viability of an airport than ability to attract airlines/planes to base their operations there.....and it is not clear at all why anyone would move out of Pearson.

If Pearson were full (and they don't seem to be) and/or unable to expand (which does not seem to be the case) and if there was a major new entrant (a third national carrier?) that needed a hub/base....maybe you have something.....but right now (and for the medium term) there is no compelling reason to build a second commercial airport for the GTA.

 

[micheal_can]

This discussion does come up every few months. I feel that the failure of Hamilton to become the GTA's second airport is due to a number of factors 1) Access. Aside from the two lane Hwy 6 there is no major road access into and out of Munro and in fact there is really only one road in/out. Any congestion will overload that network. 2) Location. Being in the West end, where Pearson is, there is no value to western GTA residents who choose Munro over Pearson. Travel times to the each airport would be the same and Pearson will always have greater options.

A second GTA airport needs to be in the East so that it can serve the 1-2 million residents in the East who currently face a 1 hr+ drive across the GTA just to get to the airport.

^^^^^THIS^^^^^

Every effort should be done to utilize YHM. That means that a 6 lane divided highway needs to be built from 403 to it. Then another from where Red Hill and the LINC meet to it as well. Next, a GO train line needs to extend to it.

Now, it has the necessary services to attract the travelers.

Canada does need a new low cost carrier. Westjet was, but now their pricing is on par with Air Canada. If that new airline ran from YHM then it would thrive.

 

[11th]

The difference would be the points that I outlined in my previous post. Picture the average resident living halfway between Pearson and Munro, roughly between Oakville/Burlington. To them there is essentially no difference in travel time from their homes to either airport (google maps gives 30-40 mins travel time to both airports with Pearson jumping to 50 mins at peak periods) so obviously they choose the airport with the greater options. It doesn't matter if it's business travel, personal travel, or leisure charters, they have greater choice at Pearson, probably use Pearson most and thus are familiar with it to the point they probably don't even consider Munro. Closer to Pearson the comparison gets worse, further away makes little impact in travel time and thus decision and in fact brings buffalo into the equation.

Now look at the same average resident living in the middle of Scarborough. Same travel times, (roughly as peak period travel time pushes to 1 hr and we all know how the 401 can be), but now lets start pushing east. Travel times begin to grow dramatically and an option in the East becomes a viable alternative. For these residents there is no Buffalo to resort to.

I agree it will require airlines to serve the airport yes, Munro is just stuck between the rock of being to close to Pearson and the hard place of Buffalo airport to be a viable alternative. If WestJet had setup in a Pickering Airport as a LCC I wonder if they would have had more success than they had at Munro, and add in a Sunwing (or similar vacation charter airline) and you could have a viable small airport.

Shorter way to put it, Hamilton has too much overlap with adjacent airports with scheduled flights (Pearson, Buffalo, K/W). An airport in Pickering will only be overlapping with Pearson.

 

[EastYorkTTCFan]

Don't forget Montreal had two airports but ended up closing one of them a wile ago, currently Person is doing OK capacity wise plus they have space to be able to expand terminal 1 to terminal 3 at some point as well. Alos don't fort they have some of the longest runways in Canad it was one of two placer the concord could land and also a possible emergency landing place for the space shuttle (although the later never happened the only space shuttle to visit Toronto was the non powered Enterprise piggy backing on a 747)

 

[micheal_can]

Don't forget Montreal had two airports but ended up closing one of them a wile ago, currently Person is doing OK capacity wise plus they have space to be able to expand terminal 1 to terminal 3 at some point as well. Alos don't fort they have some of the longest runways in Canad it was one of two placer the concord could land and also a possible emergency landing place for the space shuttle (although the later never happened the only space shuttle to visit Toronto was the non powered Enterprise piggy backing on a 747)

Mirabel? It i a cargo only airport. It is not closed.

 

[EastYorkTTCFan]

Mirabel? It i a cargo only airport. It is not closed.

it used to be a passenger airport as well

 

[TOareaFan]

it used to be a passenger airport as well

and when it was built it was not intended to be a "2nd airport" the original plan was to build a super airport to replace Dorval.....I think some even dreamed it would be some sort of Eastern Canadian super airport serving both Montreal and Ottawa....but it was never intended to be a partner airport to Dorval.

 

[ShonTron]

and when it was built it was not intended to be a "2nd airport" the original plan was to build a super airport to replace Dorval.....I think some even dreamed it would be some sort of Eastern Canadian super airport serving both Montreal and Ottawa....but it was never intended to be a partner airport to Dorval.

Indeed. A 'high-speed' rail service would have connected the airport to Ottawa and Montreal. Had Mirabel gone through as planned, it likely would have resulted in at least a higher speed rail service in the Corridor by now.