Toronto Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport | ?m | ?s | Ports Toronto | Arup

Admiral Beez said:
For a start, we don't know if Porter is profitable. It's a private company, so who cares, but Deluce will likely expire within the timeline I suggested, and the new owners may not see the business case. I love flying on Porter, but it's a rare day that I see the aircraft more than 50% full.
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We must fly at different times. Except for one flight, every time I've flown Porter the plane has been full. I know that's not always the case which is why you can get some great deals on off-peak time flights, but it's a busy hub of activity and I do expect it's profitable.
 
Admiral Beez said:
For a start, we don't know if Porter is profitable. It's a private company, so who cares, but Deluce will likely expire within the timeline I suggested, and the new owners may not see the business case. I love flying on Porter, but it's a rare day that I see the aircraft more than 50% full.
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Sorry, I may have misunderstood....the comment of yours that I responded to was that once the Pearson train became "high speed" and once Pickering was built that Billy Bishop would not be profitable to run. Lots of the airlines that fly in and out of Pearson have shown to be not profitable but Pearson still makes money.
 
Just when will we have high speed rail? Just when will Pickering be built, and expanded to the point of accepting commercial air travel? How much will Toronto and the GTA region grow with in these time frames.

Outside of decades of study, and discussion on internet boards like this is high speed rail even on anyone's front burner? Not by the looks of it. We can propose and propose, and map out projected routes but until some politician writes a cheque and cuts a ribbon it is all a pipe dream.

On Pickering. It's amazing, in the Pickering thread there is discussion by some that Pearson has ample capacity to grow and that Pickering is NOT needed. Yet here we are saying not just that Pickering will be built within the next 40 years but that it will be able to bleed off passenger traffic from Porter/Island airport to the point that Porter moves out of the Island or goes out of business. Amazing. And I'm not saying that we don't need Pickering, it is needed at the very least to pick up private and non commercial air traffic.

Those are two fairly big qualifiers.
 
AlvinofDiaspar said:
From the Globe:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...ions-stall-amid-noise-debate/article15647386/

AoD
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Talk about a misleading headline:

"As Porter plans stall, Toronto deputy mayor urges quick action on airport expansion"

Kelly is not urging "quick action". He is proposing to vote on this within the time-frame previously agreed by the executive committee.

The plan all along was for city staff to present a report this year for council to vote on but staff keep on finding reasons to postpone the report.

In recommending postponement until after the next election city staff cite the following ridiculous reason:

"b. the preliminary test flight data is insufficient to confirm that the CS-100 aircraft will comply with the terms of the Tripartite Agreement;"


If the CS100 complied fully with the Tripartite Agreement Porter would not need to come before city council for approval (the current Q400 did not comply with the original tripartite agreement).

As for Porter's plan "stalling" the only thing that is happening is the city planning staff are playing politics. They are recommending that a decision on whether to allow Porter to fly jets into Billy Bishop be postponed until March 2015, i.e. until after the next election. Obviously they are hoping that Olivia Chow gets elected and that she will quash the airport expansion plan.
 
Peepers:

Did you miss the bit about how TC wasn't able to certify the performance characteristics of the plane? Porter is playing politics by requesting the extension before they have hard data with an untested plane in the first place. Are you suggesting that the city should vote on the plan without certified data (beyond what's provided by the Pratt-Whitney, in a non-standard test setting) just because Porter wanted to?

And funny you should be raising what Olivia Chow *might* do when the deputy mayor has already stated that they want to rush because precisely because of that fear. Why, we need to schedule votes before we get final data because we fear the stance of the next mayor? The data isn't good enough to stand on its' own?

AoD
 
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^frankly, this just sounds like staff "playing politics" which is not (I don't think) their role.

Even if there is, today, insufficient information to decide/recommend.....there is a lot of time between now and March 2015 to rectify that and many, I presume, council meetings. If staff were to say "please postpone this to March 2014" I would be less skeptical...but the choice of deferral date just says "let's give us a chance to elect a Mayor and council that want this less, and it might just go away"....not their job at all.
 
Woodbridge_Heights said:
Just when will we have high speed rail? Just when will Pickering be built, and expanded to the point of accepting commercial air travel? How much will Toronto and the GTA region grow with in these time frames.

Outside of decades of study, and discussion on internet boards like this is high speed rail even on anyone's front burner? Not by the looks of it. We can propose and propose, and map out projected routes but until some politician writes a cheque and cuts a ribbon it is all a pipe dream.

On Pickering. It's amazing, in the Pickering thread there is discussion by some that Pearson has ample capacity to grow and that Pickering is NOT needed. Yet here we are saying not just that Pickering will be built within the next 40 years but that it will be able to bleed off passenger traffic from Porter/Island airport to the point that Porter moves out of the Island or goes out of business. Amazing. And I'm not saying that we don't need Pickering, it is needed at the very least to pick up private and non commercial air traffic.

Those are two fairly big qualifiers.
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It would be interesting to see the technical details about how many flights to Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec City could be eliminated as a result of High Speed Rail. It could also tell GTAA how many landing slots/gates can become available if a portion of the flying public were to take the train to destinations such as Ottawa and Montreal, rather than fly.
 
Peepers, I think you are a little too prone to believe that city staff like to play politics and tamper with city operations. If planners didn't want it approved, they would say so, and explain why. It is very clearly stated that they cannot come to a conclusion as there is not enough data to determine whether the jets are too loud, and considering that noise was identified as a key concern with the expansion, it is important to have that information to make a proper decision.
 
innsertnamehere said:
Peepers, I think you are a little too prone to believe that city staff like to play politics and tamper with city operations. If planners didn't want it approved, they would say so, and explain why. It is very clearly stated that they cannot come to a conclusion as there is not enough data to determine whether the jets are too loud, and considering that noise was identified as a key concern with the expansion, it is important to have that information to make a proper decision.
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And why would city staff want to play politics in the first place, considering their current boss are pro-TIA, and that they are in all probabilities not living in the neighbourhood?

AoD
 
Peepers is borderline trolling.

Anyone who knows anything about how politics are supposed to work is that bureaucrats are responsible for day-to-day operations and policy development, but taking their direction from the elected government (at any level). The staffers are directed to report on this issue. They recommend waiting for more facts to come in. That's not "playing politics" - and I'm sure Peepers knows this. Council of course is free to "receive" this advice while in effect ignoring it and vote to go ahead.

Council votes opposite to staff recommendations quite often, especially about little things like development applications and putting in traffic control signs/signals.
 
ShonTron:

And even assuming that staff would somehow play politics - why would they suggest a route that more or less conflicts with the current stance of their boss in the first place? One'd think that appeasing the current boss is more of a sure bet than playing for one that might not materialize down the road.

AoD
 
ShonTron said:
Peepers is borderline trolling.

Anyone who knows anything about how politics are supposed to work is that bureaucrats are responsible for day-to-day operations and policy development, but taking their direction from the elected government (at any level). The staffers are directed to report on this issue. They recommend waiting for more facts to come in. That's not "playing politics" - and I'm sure Peepers knows this. Council of course is free to "receive" this advice while in effect ignoring it and vote to go ahead.

Council votes opposite to staff recommendations quite often, especially about little things like development applications and putting in traffic control signs/signals.
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ok....but why would they not say "defer until the information comes in" as opposed to "defer until March 2015"?
 
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