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Pickering Airport (Transport Canada/GTAA, Proposed)

There is a monkey-wrench in having a second airport in a city which I think this discussion is missing.

It's a colossal pain in the ass.

Cities with a second large commercial airport have one because the existing large airport can not handle more capacity. There is no place in the world running (joyfully and efficiently) a second or third large airport.

1. Airlines find it a pain in the ass to fly into more than one airport. Check rbt's post about Air Canada flying to JFK.
2. Airports end up serving different audiences. JFK (in NYC) serves international traffic because it has runways long enough for jumbo jets. Laguardia (NYC) serves domestic traffic only because it has short runways - an old and tired terminal building and is closer to Manhattan. If you were flying to NYC for a day and had to travel through JFK, you'd spend more time travelling from JFK to Manhattan than you would from YYZ to JFK. Newark serves a different audience because NYC is so hard to travel around and the other airports lack capacity.
3. It's a pain in the ass for travelers. If you book a flight from NYC to somewhere that you can't fly from Toronto - admittedly very few places - like Johannesburg, then you'd need to get to JFK. But from YYZ, you can only fly to Laguardia which leaves you taxiing, training or bussing miles between airports, let alone terminals.
4. Cities with more than one airport typically have a 'premier' airport and then a collection of also-rans. Think of Heathrow vs Gatwick and Stanstead. One is a vacation airline airport and Ryanair - the ultra-low-cost-flyer - flies to both Gatwick and Stanstead. No business traveller would touch either. As for Paris, we all probably remember Charles de Gaulle, but how many remember the former airport Orly. It's a major European hub for Paris, but clearly a secondary airport to CDG. Also a pain in the ass if you are flying from a secondary airport elsewhere to get to CDG for the international flight back to North America.

It is worth preserving Pearson at almost any cost. An airport in Pickering would cripple Toronto as a business centre. YYZ is still a 20 minute train ride and under some circumstances a 20 minute drive from downtown. At best, the Pickering lands are a 60 minute drive on a highway (DVP) with zero additional cpacity. The viability of Toronto as a business city would plummet instantly with a a second airport (vis-a-vis YYZ) or a primary airport in this location.
 
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TransitBart said:
There is a monkey-wrench in having a second airport in a city which I think this discussion is missing.

It's a colossal pain in the ass.

Cities with a second large commercial airport have one because the existing large airport can not handle more capacity. There is no place in the world running (joyfully and efficiently) a second or third large airport.

1. Airlines find it a pain in the ass to fly into more than one airport. Check rbt's post about Air Canada flying to JFK.
2. Airports end up serving different audiences. JFK (in NYC) serves international traffic because it has runways long enough for jumbo jets. Laguardia (NYC) serves domestic traffic only because it has short runways - an old and tired terminal building and is closer to Manhattan. If you were flying to NYC for a day and had to travel through JFK, you'd spend more time travelling from JFK to Manhattan than you would from YYZ to JFK. Newark serves a different audience because NYC is so hard to travel around and the other airports lack capacity.
3. It's a pain in the ass for travelers. If you book a flight from NYC to somewhere that you can't fly from Toronto - admittedly very few places - like Johannesburg, then you'd need to get to JFK. But from YYZ, you can only fly to Laguardia which leaves you taxiing, training or bussing miles between airports, let alone terminals.
4. Cities with more than one airport typically have a 'premier' airport and then a collection of also-rans. Think of Heathrow vs Gatwick and Stanstead. One is a vacation airline airport and Ryanair - the ultra-low-cost-flyer - flies to both Gatwick and Stanstead. No business traveller would touch either. As for Paris, we all probably remember Charles de Gaulle, but how many remember the former airport Orly. It's a major European hub for Paris, but clearly a secondary airport to CDG. Also a pain in the ass if you are flying from a secondary airport elsewhere to get to CDG for the international flight back to North America.

It is worth preserving Pearson at almost any cost. An airport in Pickering would cripple Toronto as a business centre. YYZ is still a 20 minute train ride and under some circumstances a 20 minute drive from downtown. At best, the Pickering lands are a 60 minute drive on a highway (DVP) with zero additional cpacity. The viability of Toronto as a business city would plummet instantly with a a second airport (vis-a-vis YYZ) or a primary airport in this location.
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1. Airlines will fly where there's demand. AC flies to La Guardia because they benefit from being closer to the core. And to Newark because they have Star Alliance partner United with a hub there. JFK would be pointless for Air Canada.

2. You're not aware of the Perimeter Rule? Flights from LaGuardia are restricted to a 1500 miles radius. This is why there are no international flights there. The runway can support longer flights than that.

3. Not necessarily. Depends on transit setup. In New York, both LaGuardia and JFK are well served by transit. The only hassle to travelers comes from having to change airports. But that doesn't come up to often unless you are booking separate tickets outside the originating airline's alliance. Anybody shuttling between LaGuardia and JFK is doing so to save money and take advantage of fare arbitrage. Air Canada can get you to Johannesburg. It just won't get you there through JFK (probably transit in Europe with Swiss, Lufthansa or Turkish).

4. Orly proves a great point. Very valuable for regional business travel to have an airport close to the core. As for the split airports, this also comes down to capacity. Heathrow is simply not big enough to accommodate all the air traffic to London. In fact, they've been having a massive debate in the UK on just building a third runway at Heathrow. Gatwick is still limited to one runway. And at one point, they mayor of London (the fanciful Boris) had proposed an island in the Thames Estuary connected by high speed rail and consolidating all the traffic at LHR, LGW and STN. The price tag of tens of billions of pounds did the plan in. And they have approved the third runway. All this is to say that split airports are almost always governed by factors of demand and geographic constraints (airspace, land, proximity to city). If there were no such constraints, every city would build a Dubai World Central with 6 runways on the outskirts of town. In Toronto's case, Pearson will max out at some point, but that point is a long, long ways away.

5. Pickering is not a threat to Pearson. Drop that nonsense. GTAA could give them free space at Pickering and Air Canada would never move. Why? Because everyone of their Star Partners flies to Pearson. Likewise, Westjet gets tons of feed from all the other carriers at Pearson. Best case scenario for Pickering is a carrier like Newleaf turning Pickering into some chintzy version of Stansted. And that's not a bad thing. They might actually be inducing demand. However, all that is a long ways away. It's very likely that for most of our lifetime, Pickering will support nothing more than general aviation, and/or maybe a handful of Charters.
 
kEiThZ said:
Having an airport and having an airline offer commercial service are two different things. For example, the Waterloo region has half a million people and tons of higher yielding business travel. Should be a slam dunk right? However, the airport has one scheduled flight and two charter flights. The market has to be there. And quite frankly, I can't see what market will be there at Pickering, when Hamilton with a larger catchment population, manages only 3 flights to 3 cities from major scheduled carriers. Hamilton has only succeeded because it has become a charter reliever for Pearson. And while the two dozen charter flights look impressive, most aren't dailies. We're talking a handful of flights per day at peak season.

The thing is, the only portion that's really relevant is the population well east of Pickering, who would pick Pickering every time. But for the most of those in the middle? Pearson will be in contention, and if ever transit improves there, it'll be more attractive than Pickering. More frequency and more destinations and all the major alliances operating out of Pearson (really important for business travelers who actually fill airplanes).

There's a strong need for a new general aviation airport in the GTA. I say that as a PPL holder. Buttonville is closing. Markham's a hole suitable for nothing more than gliding and shooting practice approaches. And Oshawa is hemmed in by development. Consolidating that traffic at Pickering will reduce cost (in the long run), improve safety and airspace efficiency. But in terms of anybody looking at commercial service? Best case scenario is one of these new carriers like New Leaf ordering a handful of flights a day and maybe some charters.
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Eh... I think the delimiter is further West than Pickering. According to google maps a trip from Scarborough Town Centre to Pearson would take roughly the same time (30 mins in 'normal' conditions) as a trip to the site of Pickering Airport. I think, provided the service is there that people would avoid the trip across the 401 to Pearson. Even with transit improvements, one would assume that the same transit improvements would come to Pickering as well.
 
I transferred Charles de Gaulle to Orly back in the day. There was a shuttle bus that had to drive in jammed ring-road highway traffic to make the connection. A bit stressful to be honest.
 
Woodbridge_Heights said:
Eh... I think the delimiter is further West than Pickering. According to google maps a trip from Scarborough Town Centre to Pearson would take roughly the same time (30 mins in 'normal' conditions) as a trip to the site of Pickering Airport. I think, provided the service is there that people would avoid the trip across the 401 to Pearson. Even with transit improvements, one would assume that the same transit improvements would come to Pickering as well.
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Again. All irrelevant if the airline you want is not servicing the destination you want from that airport. People think Pickering is going to be Toronto's Gatwick or LaGuardia. No way. Pearson is not even close to maxing out.
 
dowlingm said:
Don't bother doing a CTRL-F for "climate change". It isn't there.
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People going vegetarian would do a ton for climate change. Given how bad methane, going vegan would have a larger benefit than eliminating most transport activities. How much willingness is there to do that? Given the evidence, a low-carb meat powered bicyclist is probably doing tons of damage to the environment.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0220/p03s01-ussc.html

Be grateful that the new generation of aircraft coming on line are far more fuel efficient. And until the recent stall in oil prices, airlines were ruthlessly pursuing fleet efficiency improvements:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704901104575423261677748380

Commercial aviation is probably more efficient than driving:

http://www.theicct.org/blogs/staff/planes-trains-and-automobiles-counting-carbon

And that should be worrisome. Commercial Aviation makes up just 2% of global emissions. You want to cut down on carbon emissions? Start aiming to fully electrify land transport first. The Germans are aiming for ban on gasoline car sales by 2030. I would love to see Canada join them.

https://electrek.co/2016/06/14/all-new-cars-mandated-electric-germany-2030/

That would do far more than worrying about too many people taking a Caribbean vacation.


Should be noted that Canadian carriers are among the most fuel efficient. Air Canada is a top 5 Trans-Atlantic carrier on fuel efficiency. And they've not even finished taking delivery of all their Dreamliner orders yet.

http://www.theicct.org/transatlantic-airline-efficiency-2014
 
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Why not make Pickering Airport a Cargo Only airport?

Move the sorting facilities to there and have all cargo use that airport. This would open up space for more passenger flights.

Now, if they were too build some sort of rail link to the Island Airport, then, they could move all small aircraft (regional air) to there and have Pearson only be for international flights or the large aircraft.
 
micheal_can said:
Why not make Pickering Airport a Cargo Only airport?

Move the sorting facilities to there and have all cargo use that airport. This would open up space for more passenger flights.

Now, if they were too build some sort of rail link to the Island Airport, then, they could move all small aircraft (regional air) to there and have Pearson only be for international flights or the large aircraft.
Click to expand...

That could be an option. However much of the Cargo demand exists in the Western GTA. Hamilton, Missisauga, etc generate a lot of demand for cargo. Furthermore there is access to the US Border, Buffalo and Detroit.
 
TransitBart said:
Hamilton Munro is extensively used for freight already.
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Woodbridge_Heights said:
That could be an option. However much of the Cargo demand exists in the Western GTA. Hamilton, Missisauga, etc generate a lot of demand for cargo. Furthermore there is access to the US Border, Buffalo and Detroit.
Click to expand...

So, why not consolidate all cargo at Pickering and have the other airports for passengers?
 
micheal_can said:
So, why not consolidate all cargo at Pickering and have the other airports for passengers?
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This has already been covered.

A significant chunk of air freight (possibly even the majority now) is carried in belly cargo of passenger aircraft. You cannot separate passenger and cargo anymore. At best, you could convince a handful of shippers like Fedex and UPS to move. But they use belly cargo sometimes too. They wouldn't be too happy about it.

This move would pretty much go against the current policies of trying to turn TPIA into a megahub.
 
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