Alto - High Speed Rail (Toronto-Quebec City)

[roger1818]

When a third of passengers are Ottawa and Montreal, it's debatable how many of those other flights could be profitable without transfer passengers.

And those flights are all on 78 seater Q400s anyway. So it's not like a ton of passengers that can't be accommodated simply by up gauging out of Pearson to those same destinations or swapping some YOW and YUL slots out of YYZ for new destinations. Lots of options in a post HSR world.

So are you are saying that Toronto is too small and undesirable a destination to fill "78 seater Q400s" with with visitors or residents without help from Ottawa and Montreal (despite those cities also having flights to most of those destinations)? I am not saying that YYZ couldn't handle the additional passengers with up gauging flights to those other destinations, just that YTZ could still be profitable post HSR by expanding flights to other destinations. Besides, Toronto will likely be even bigger by the time Alto is operational.

But also the airport exists to benefit the city. Not the other way around. And it's really debatable whether the best value of that land is an airport in an era when we have HSR and much better connectivity to Pearson itself in the GTA.

I guess it depends what PortsToronto believes is best in its best interest given that it is mandated to be financially self-sufficient and receives no federal, provincial or municipal funding. If the airport continues to be profitable, it would be a tough sell to demolish it for something else.