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

[DB9]

well why is that a bad thing? A mini international airport funnelling tourists in from the US is fine. Porter already flies to the US anyways so it's just an expansion of routes. As long as it can be regulated properly
it should be a good thing that it can serve the city tourism better.

Why would you put a "mini international" airport in the middle of downtown, if YYZ is already an effective hub for this kind of traffic? Who's going to pay for the upgrade in infrastructure needed to service this international airport?

Tourism is already well served by YYZ. Besides the type of tourism Toronto wants to grow (affluent Asian & European travelers) can't reach Toronto by YTZ, no matter how big the airport is.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

well why is that a bad thing? A mini international airport funnelling tourists in from the US is fine. Porter already flies to the US anyways so its just an expansion of routes. As long as it can be regulated properly it should be a good thing that it can serve the city tourism better.

Tourism is not driven by the proximity of the airport to the core.

AoD

 

[cplchanb]

Why would you put a "mini international" airport in the middle of downtown, if YYZ is already an effective hub for this kind of traffic? Who's going to pay for the upgrade in infrastructure needed to service this international airport?

Tourism is already well served by YYZ. Besides the type of tourism Toronto wants to grow (affluent Asian & European travelers) can't reach Toronto by YTZ, no matter how big the airport is.

As a condition of allowing for further growth, BB can be obligated to help fund the growth of infrastructure. Since theres been debate on how to get more $$ this can be a way. Maybe my choice of words was not the best,
but if BB can be used as an alternate for short haul US flights they can offset the capacity at yyz while at the same time allow for opportunities for revenue growth

 

[DB9]

As a condition of allowing for further growth, BB can be obligated to help fund the growth of infrastructure. Since theres been debate on how to get more $$ this can be a way. Maybe my choice of words was not the best,
but if BB can be used as an alternate for short haul US flights they can offset the capacity at yyz while at the same time allow for opportunities for revenue growth

Short haul US flights are maxed out though. There's no more need for more, that's why they want to expand the runway to tap into new and farther markets like YVR and LAX to realize growth.

 

[Mo-tage]

I would argue the UPx already makes YTZ largely redundant. its only about 5 minutes longer on the UPX from Union as YTZ is with the shuttle / walk through the tunnel.

The one thing that is nice about YTZ is its size. It is a lot smaller, which means security lines and walking distances are a lot shorter.

I once made it from my desk at King and Bay to sitting on a Porter flight in 25 minutes (at around 3pm). I generally fly out of Pearson because I like to centralize my airline point collection, but short of teleportation YTZ will always be faster.

 

[Mo-tage]

Short haul US flights are maxed out though. There's no more need for more, that's why they want to expand the runway to tap into new and farther markets like YVR and LAX to realize growth.

What's maxed out at YTZ is slots (number of daily landings and takeoffs), some growth is available if they get rid of the general aviation and once Orange moves, but it is still a heavily slot constrained airport. The reason for the shift to jets was to expand the value of each slot by flying bigger planes with more seats. The markets Porter currently flies to are not niche, they are the core travel markets for the northeast from Toronto. My understanding is that Porter's load factors are good and they are profitable but without bigger planes and/or more slots growth is limited. They could increase profitability on existing routes by flying larger planes, especially during peak periods when flights are full to key markets like Montreal or New York.

New destinations like LAX or YVR were really just the teaser to try and gain support for the jets. If Bombardier came out with a 100 seat Q500 tomorrow you can bet Porter would be a buyer even if it had the same range.

 

[DB9]

What's maxed out at YTZ is slots (number of daily landings and takeoffs), some growth is available if they get rid of the general aviation and once Orange moves, but it is still a heavily slot constrained airport. The reason for the shift to jets was to expand the value of each slot by flying bigger planes with more seats. The markets Porter currently flies to are not niche, they are the core travel markets for the northeast from Toronto. My understanding is that Porter's load factors are good and they are profitable but without bigger planes and/or more slots growth is limited. They could increase profitability on existing routes by flying larger planes, especially during peak periods when flights are full to key markets like Montreal or New York.

New destinations like LAX or YVR were really just the teaser to try and gain support for the jets. If Bombardier came out with a 100 seat Q500 tomorrow you can bet Porter would be a buyer even if it had the same range.

Even if they're teasers intially, these highly profitable and popular routes will probably mean Porter will rationalize its YTZ slots and drop less popular and closer short haul destinations in favour of serving these longer haul markets. That in the end just creates a greater overlap with the offerings at YYZ.

 

[kEiThZ]

Even if they're teasers intially, these highly profitable and popular routes will probably mean Porter will rationalize its YTZ slots and drop less popular and closer short haul destinations in favour of serving these longer haul markets. That in the end just creates a greater overlap with the offerings at YYZ.

I don't get this argument. There's a lot of overlap between Midway and O'Hare, LaGuardia and JFK, Reagan and Dulles, and London City and Heathrow, Gatwick and Stanstead.

The point of city centre airports is usually to facilitate higher yielding business traffic. The backpackers are usually a secondary consideration.

 

[ndawgg]

As someone who lives at Yonge and College, I'll take YTZ any day over YYZ plus UPX, and wish I could get more places from it. I don't need my European flights to take off from there, but it would be great if I had more options from the island.

 

[kEiThZ]

The point I'll keep making here is that policies should target the desired effect. It's ridiculous to try and reduce traffic by using noise standards and then basing those noise standards on a specific technology.

Only in Toronto do we come up with such idiotic policy formulation.

As for the airport itself, while I value it and advocate for it, I would agree in passing it up if Toronto ever gets proper high speed rail. Till then, it provides vital competition that keeps airfares low and keeps this city accessible.

 

[DB9]

I don't get this argument. There's a lot of overlap between Midway and O'Hare, LaGuardia and JFK, Reagan and Dulles, and London City and Heathrow, Gatwick and Stanstead.

The point of city centre airports is usually to facilitate higher yielding business traffic. The backpackers are usually a secondary consideration.

But none of those airports are relatively close to "downtown". Can you even walk to Midway from the loop, Laguardia from Midtown Manhattan or London City Airport from the City/West End?

The unique issue with YTZ is that the airport's location dead centre in the heart of downtown, creating a lot of externalities that these other airports do not face. The infrastructure and set-up of YTZ at the moment was not meant to handle the passenger loads and traffic a "mini international" airport will generate. If it's not complementary to the offerings at YYZ (i.e. help YYZ clear out short haul slots in favour of more profitable long haul flights), there is no need for those flights to go to YTZ.

A better comparison to YTZ would be Hong Kong's old Kai Tak airport in Kowloon. The areas nearby around Victoria Harbour that were directly adjacent to the airport had density levels comparable to the densest parts of downtown Toronto. In the end, when they opened HKG, they closed down Kai Tak because it wasn't compatible with the urban environment around it.

 

[kEiThZ]

In the end, when they opened HKG, they closed down Kai Tak because it wasn't compatible with the urban environment around it.

Kai Tak had a lot of issues beyond incompatibility with the "urban environment".

And nobody here is proposing landing 747s at the Island.

 

[DB9]

Kai Tak had a lot of issues beyond incompatibility with the "urban environment".

And nobody here is proposing landing 747s at the Island.

Yes it did - one of the big issues was planes nearly hitting the buildings nearby.. and they weren't even that tall at the time. There was no room for error whatsoever, as the runway was limited in length. Comparatively speaking, the flight path to YTZ is also pretty close to the country's biggest cluster of skyscrapers.

 

[kEiThZ]

If it's not complementary to the offerings at YYZ (i.e. help YYZ clear out short haul slots in favour of more profitable long haul flights), there is no need for those flights to go to YTZ.

You will never have airports in the same city offering completely different destinations. They have the same catchment. They have basically the same set of customers. You can only get segmentation based on the time value difference of traveling to each airport. This is why I say that YTZ can go when we have high speed rail. Till then, the closure of YTZ will have a broad economic impact, given the duopoly at Pearson.

The Feds aren't stupid. They recognize this situation. Transport Canada's own statistics have shown a real decrease in airfares for Toronto-Ottawa and Toronto-Montreal (wish I could find the table, I've seen it before). And despite what some here think, even a decade of Liberal government at the federal level will not bring the closure of YTZ. The last thing they want is to see a massive increase in regional airfares from reduced competition, making access to tax revenue generating Toronto more difficult. Decent rail service that competes with the airlines should ameliorate those concerns. Which then might negate the need for YTZ.

 

[kEiThZ]

Yes it did - one of the big issues was planes nearly hitting the buildings nearby.. and they weren't even that tall at the time. There was no room for error whatsoever, as the runway was limited in length. Comparatively speaking, the flight path to YTZ is also pretty close to the country's biggest cluster of skyscrapers.

I've hand flown approaches at YTZ. And talking to the guys who've done this and Kai Tak, there's no comparison. YTZ really is a breeze, since the approach parallels the shoreline. There are no obstacle concerns. 08/26 is a different matter. And that's certainly debatable for closure. But they are rather strict in who and under what conditions someone is using that runway.