both AC and WestJet have expressed interest in landing Airbus A-319's and Boeing 727's at YTZ for further flung destinations. They would absolutely love to enter the market Porter is entering now, the only reason they hadn't expressed interest before this is that it wasn't worth the political effort to get the expansion underway, but now that Porter is doing that for them they are happy to tag along.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but 737s (727s have been out of production for 30 years) and A319s are existing aircraft that don't meet the noise regulations that runway supporters steadfastly claim won't be touched. This kind of information would sort of confirm the worst fears of "No Jets Toronto", no?
Also, why would Porter fight all the dirty battles for AC and Westjet just to allow them to come in and compete against them? I have a feeling that AC and Westjet feel it's not worth the political effort because it's not worth the financial reward.
I find this line from an Air Canada
FAQ on YTZ services to be rather telling:
Q: Why is Montreal the only destination? Why not other destinations, such as Ottawa?
A: Service is currently to/from Montreal because of the greater amount of connection possibilities to
Air Canada’s network. This is an opportunity to further build the Montreal hub.
If anything, it seems to suggest that they are serving YTZ for the benefit of Montreal, not Toronto. I mean, it's standard customer service boilerplate, and should not be interpreted as a decision made in AC's boardrooms. But, still, why would they treat YTZ so dismissively and casually if they really thought it was such a great asset? Wouldn't they say something like: "Stay tuned! We have plans to serve plenty of exciting new destinations out of YTZ in the coming year!" ?
If you're correct, there must be plenty of lucrative destinations for them to run a duplicate service out of YTZ. It's not like they lack YTZ-capable aircraft at the present time; their 61 Dash-8s is more than twice the size of Porter's existing fleet.
There must be something else. Maybe they figure that an airport with no border preclearance, no expandable apron, no expandable terminal, zero parking, a single runway, curfews, and no room for a Maple Leaf lounge is not worth creating duplicate services for when you call the shots at an international airport with 6 runways, expandable space, all your maintenance crew, the ability to code share international and US connections with your Star Alliance partners, that's within driving distance of 10 million Ontarians and that will soon boast a downtown express rail link, anyway.