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PinkLucy said:
They can call for those restrictions, but then they have to enforce them. There are currently restrictions on times (6:45 am, I think, and 11 pm), and they're not respected, and there's no repercussions.
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Actually, there are repercussions, and Porter pays fines for every late landing.
 
It's obviously not enough of a repercussion then, because they keep doing it.

I recently read a report that someone put together documenting early morning and late night flights; Porter responded with a myriad of reasons as to why these flights were outside of the times and how rare it was, but living across from them, I can attest that it is not at all unusual to hear flights arrive after 11 pm (early morning take-offs aren't that common).

I like Porter and the service they offer, but they do push the limits of their agreements on a regular basis.
 
What flight time restrictions do, really, is prevent airlines from scheduling outside of those times....but, at any airport, there will be flights outside of the restricted times because "stuff" happens throughout some days that make it necessary to flex the operation outside of normal schedules. The reason there it happens less in the morning than at night is, likely, just simply because the start of a new operating day is a chance to "re-set" the schedule and get back on norm.

How often are there landings after 11pm? Are they all Porter flights? Have you noticed any relationship to "bad weather" days that may have affected travel in general?

If they are just operating a sloppy schedule then something should be done....if they are just the victim of temporarily bad operating environment then there probably is not much that can be done.
 
The current TPA ad campaign is unintentionally hilarious. I saw a poster this morning that said something to the effect of "We promise not to do" such and such, the implicit message being that they don't feel they should be held to their other statements of intention that aren't prefaced with "we promise". It was reminiscent of Ford's juvenile "you didn't ask the right question". I guess we know what demographic the TPA is appealing to. On the other side, of course, we have the "pave the lake" soundbite.

Can someone please invite an adult to moderate the discussion. Would it also be to much to ask that corporal punishment be reinstituted to suitably punish any adults who act like children? I believe the Sumpreme Court has said that spanking is acceptable in the context of loving-but-firm discipline.
 
The interesting thing about this idea of caps is that under current rules (and airport design) the passenger load could grow to 3.8 million annually.

So, it appears, that both sides are looking for favourable amendments to the current agreement. TPA wants the restriction on jets be lifted (as long as those jets stay within the noise rules) and the city is wanting to correct the amount of growth they had previously been willing to accept.

The question is, really, why would any airline want to invest so much in new planes if all it did was allow them to carry (pretty much) the exact amount of passengers they already carry?

Another question for the people opposed to the expansion is are you comfortable with this approach by the city? One that could see the applicant say "nah, we will just go back to what we have and grow our business to 3.8 million passengers as currently allowed"

Perhaps this is "posturing/negotiating" and what the city is looking for is a compromise that would, for example, see the expansion allowed but a cap of, say, 3 million passengers a year established.
 
TOareaFan said:
How often are there landings after 11pm? Are they all Porter flights? Have you noticed any relationship to "bad weather" days that may have affected travel in general?
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I'd say at least weekly, but I don't track them (there are people who do). It's more that I hear a landing and then notice the time and think "that's odd". But it's relatively frequent. Bad weather days I expect it because they're trying to get back on schedule, but it can happen any time.

I can't tell you if it's Porter or Air Canada because I don't look, I just hear :). But I can tell the difference between those flights and helicopters or the small private planes, so I'd say it's commercial flights.

Here's a posting from Community Air (an often highly biased source but this particular post isn't a rant) with some specifics from December. http://blog.communityair.org/2014/03/16/btcca-comings-and-goings.aspx
 
PinkLucy said:
I'd say at least weekly, but I don't track them (there are people who do). It's more that I hear a landing and then notice the time and think "that's odd". But it's relatively frequent. Bad weather days I expect it because they're trying to get back on schedule, but it can happen any time.

I can't tell you if it's Porter or Air Canada because I don't look, I just hear :). But I can tell the difference between those flights and helicopters or the small private planes, so I'd say it's commercial flights.

Here's a posting from Community Air (an often highly biased source but this particular post isn't a rant) with some specifics from December. http://blog.communityair.org/2014/03/16/btcca-comings-and-goings.aspx
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So, in that month (December 2013) covered by the spreadsheet, there were two violations and the airline (Porter) were fined on both occasions.....is that the issue?
 
Two violations that Porter admitted to. I'm actually impressed that they responded -- they often don't. The author claims that their stats don't jive with FlightStats. I'm sure if I dug around I could find other reports about other times because there are people who are obsessive about this.

I'm going to start paying more attention and taking note :) For me personally, it doesn't particularly bother me -- I'm usually still awake but I do find it odd to hear planes coming in at 11:30 or whatever. The engine run-ups on a Sunday afternoon are WAY more annoying.

My concerns with the airport aren't about noise. I moved beside an airport (although it was much less busy when I moved here) so such is life. And as I say, I use Porter and like their service. I'm not generally a fan of their business practices though; in general, I find them rather slimy.
 
PinkLucy said:
Two violations that Porter admitted to. I'm actually impressed that they responded -- they often don't. The author claims that their stats don't jive with FlightStats. I'm sure if I dug around I could find other reports about other times because there are people who are obsessive about this.

I'm going to start paying more attention and taking note :) For me personally, it doesn't particularly bother me -- I'm usually still awake but I do find it odd to hear planes coming in at 11:30 or whatever. The engine run-ups on a Sunday afternoon are WAY more annoying.

My concerns with the airport aren't about noise. I moved beside an airport (although it was much less busy when I moved here) so such is life. And as I say, I use Porter and like their service. I'm not generally a fan of their business practices though; in general, I find them rather slimy.
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Reading through that posting...the biggest "difference" between the writer and the responder seems to be what the curfew covers. The writer included a bunch of flights that had wheels down at 10:58-11 but arrived at the terminal after 11.....the writer makes the point that "noise is noise" and it should not matter if it is noise taxing or landing....but, I bet, contractually there is a difference and the agreement probably defines a landing in relation to the wheels touching the runway.

It seems there is a fair amount of those planes that touchdown right at or near 11....that is probably no accident either.....I bet you Porter designs its daily schedule working back from that 11 pm curfew and attempts to maximize its fleet use knowing the last planes landing at YTZ have to be on the ground by 11. So when you eliminate that disagreement between what defines a landing (and, I doubt the TPA would be able to adopt a wheels down definition if the triparty agreement used an "at the terminal" definition) then you are left with the 2 flights that Porter was fined for and a bunch that while they did start off headed for YTZ and did land after 11....they were diverted to other airports (YYZ and YHM) so they are not issues (unless the suspicion is that TPA is lying about where they landed ;) ).

I get that you are not making a big deal over this and it does not surprise me that those who are watching it very closely are likely erring on the side of the coin they favour. Looking at their own stats for December, though, it really does look like there were two flights outside the rules and Porter was fined for both of them.
 
For those without paid access :)

Mayoral candidate Karen Stintz has swiftly changed her position on the Porter Airlines proposal to fly jets in and out of the island airport.
Stintz was the first prominent city councillor to express opposition to the jets proposal. She wrote on Twitter in April: “I hope that Porter intended on using jets elsewhere because I cannot support jets at Billy Bishop airport, nor a lengthening of its runway.”
Stintz confirmed that stance in an interview with the Star on the weekend before she launched her campaign in February. But she now says she will support the expansion of the island airport on certain conditions — and she will no longer say that she is opposed to jets.
“It's not about jets,” she said repeatedly when pressed in an interview on Thursday.
Rather, she argued, the debate is simply about whether to expand the island airport.
“What I should have said was — in hindsight — 'If we're going to expand the airport, we need to do it in a thoughtful way.' And that's the tweet that I should have sent a year ago, and I didn't send that tweet,” she said.
“But my position now is that we weren't having the right discussion; now we are absolutely having the right discussion, and I can't tell you what might come out of that discussion and whether jets are part of that solution, but what I do know is that if we're going to expand the airport, we have to have a way to do it with conditions that are supporting the local economy, making sure that it's sensitive to the waterfront, and considering how it serves the business community.”
Council's executive committee will vote on the airport proposal at a special meeting on Tuesday, council possibly in April. Jets are a major component of the report they will be debating, and it was the jets proposal that sparked the debate in the first place.
Stintz has been criticized as inconsistent for her decision in 2013 to support a subway replacement for the Scarborough RT after supporting LRT in 2012. Her advisor Karl Baldauf argued that Stintz did not flip-flop on the airport.
“Tweet was issued as councillor. Now she is taking a position on behalf of city as a mayoral candidate,” he wrote on Twitter.
Ford supports the airport expansion and the jets proposal. Olivia Chow is opposed, David Soknacki conditionally supportive, John Tory “very skeptical.”
In a Thursday statement conveying her new position on the airport, Stintz said she was coming forward because she is “concerned by the position advanced by Olivia Chow, who a decade ago did not even support the existence of a downtown airport.”
Chow called in 2003 for the airport to be shut down, but Porter did not exist then. Chow now says she opposes jets and expansion, the same position Stintz held.
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Flip Flop Stintz does it again!

barring everything else that one may or may not like about Stintz her constant back and forth accompanied by typical political giberish is annoying. On this she could have said at least "My position changed after I read the reports." MUCH MUCH Better than "oops yah that's not what I meant lol VOTE FOR ME! Chow will destroy us all"

I genuinely hope she doesnt become mayor. Not only because I'm not a fan of Porter's plans but because I cant see any real vision or change in her candidacy.
 
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