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Aren't they effectively limited to something like 120-160 takeoffs and landings per day for noise reasons? I wish I could find a copy of the Tripartite Agreement to see what it actually says.

A plane making 10 trips back and forth to Ottawa will use up 10 takeoff/landing slots (5 takeoffs and 5 landings), so with 20 planes they will be pushing the limit (planes to more distant destinations won't be making 10 trips per day) if not exceeding it.

Any planes past number 20 almost certainly will have to be assigned to non-YTZ routes.

EDIT: An alternative would be to put all of their planes on long distance routes via one of their current destinations. For example, instead of having planes go back and forth to Ottawa, have them all do YTZ-YOW-YHZ-YOW-YTZ (or similar long distance routes). That way that the chance of not needing to change planes in Ottawa when heading to distant destinations increases.
 
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Porter needs to expand it's business soon. It's still firmly set in Toronto-Ottawa/Montreal trips. When HSR comes Ontario's way, they'll be screwed. I wouldn't be surprised if their Toronto-Ottawa, Toronto-Montreal, Toronto-Quebec and Toronto-Windsor services would cease entirely because of it. Also coming is Toronto-New York HSR, which would probably be a final death blow to Porter as it is now.

Great places for them to expand to would be: Sudbury, Winnipeg, maybe Bermuda, the Bahamas, Cuba and other Caribbean islands if they're within range (mostly for vacations, but it would be a good way to start broadening service,) Sault St. Marie, and maybe Buffalo and Rochester. I think these would be a great place to start, especially if the Corridor is going to get HSR anytime soon.

sjc, I agree with you that Downsview would actually be a pretty good airport for Porter to use as well. It's got a longer runway, and could hold bigger aircraft with longer range for, say, flights to Western Canada or Southern US. Buttonville might be an option too, but it's probably too isolated from the city.
 
I think it will be some time before there is both a Toronto-Ottawa and a Toronto-Montreal high speed train built and actually carrying passengers. I also have doubts that any such train will be a lot cheaper than flying unless it is heavily subsidized.

So I don't think Porter needs to worry about their market disappearing all that soon.

Great places for them to expand to would be: Sudbury, Winnipeg, maybe Bermuda, the Bahamas, Cuba and other Caribbean islands if they're within range
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They could reach Bermuda from Ottawa, Montreal, Halifax or Boston. The Caribbean (at least the western half) would need a more southerly stopping point, maybe Myrtle Beach?
 
HSR is not coming any time soon. If the decision were made tommorrow, it would take at least 8-10 years to put in to service. That's all based on a big 'if'....I can't see federal involvement regardless of which party is in power as long as the federal government is running a deficit; and the provinces don't seem to want to go it alone. Even if it does get built though, the damage to commercial aviation, will largely be contingent on the speed of the service and the cost. If they pick a 200 kph service, then it probably won't be able to compete with Porter on time. And it's still likely to do more damage to Air Canada and Westjet on TOM routes than Porter (the mainlines have to operate from Pearson which is half an hour away with significantly less fuel efficient aircraft).

Finally, if HSR does come to pass, than Porter could switch focus and concentrate largely on trans-border routes which offer much more profit potential than TOM routes (which are largely saturated with service providers). It could even partner up with the HSR operator to offer combined tickets. Take the train from Ottawa, check-in with Porter at Union, get whisked to your flight to New York (HSR can't compete with flying over the lake), or Washington, or Chicago, from the island less than an hour later.

There's a lot that will happen before HSR comes into play and then kills off Porter. And there's a lot that will happen before Porter needs another hub in Toronto. At 120-160 aircraft movements per day that's about 6-8 movements per aircraft per day. The only aircraft achieving those numbers are the ones flying Toronto-Ottawa or Toronto-Montreal. If they are flying Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal or Toronto-Newark, or Toronto-Chicago, etc. they are nowhere close to logging 6-8 movements per day.
 
sjc said:
They could reach Bermuda from Ottawa, Montreal, Halifax or Boston. The Caribbean (at least the western half) would need a more southerly stopping point, maybe Myrtle Beach?
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The could reach most of Cuba with a full load from the Island:

http://www2.bombardier.com/q400/en/range.jsp

Click on Toronto to see a map of the Q400's range.

The only thing holding them back is the Island's runway which is about 620 feet too short to allow a departure at Maximum Take-off Weight (having a full fuel load and payload). If they had the runway lengthy they could do it. Right now they can probably get about 1.5-2 hrs flight time which leaves them just shy of key destinations like Halifax.

The other issue as Jn_12 pointed out earlier is luggage capacity. If they serve longer routes they will get more tourists who tend to pack heavier taking up valuable cargo/luggage space.

Second_in_pie said:
Great places for them to expand to would be: Sudbury, Winnipeg, maybe Bermuda, the Bahamas, Cuba and other Caribbean islands if they're within range (mostly for vacations, but it would be a good way to start broadening service,) Sault St. Marie, and maybe Buffalo and Rochester. I think these would be a great place to start, especially if the Corridor is going to get HSR anytime soon.
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I don't know if they've announced Soo yet but their latest Re:porter certainly suggests it's on the list:

http://www.flyporter.com/en/in-flight_service.aspx

See page 60-61 of Summer 2009 edition.

I dunno how important Buffalo and Rochester are to them (though I'd agree that they are good choices - especially if they can tie up with a US carrier). Judging by the map on their site they have quite a few places in mind that they aren't servicing yet from the looks of what they think they can reach:

http://www.flyporter.com/en/porter_fbo.aspx
 
sjc said:
I think it will be some time before there is both a Toronto-Ottawa and a Toronto-Montreal high speed train built and actually carrying passengers. I also have doubts that any such train will be a lot cheaper than flying unless it is heavily subsidized.

So I don't think Porter needs to worry about their market disappearing all that soon.
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It's sad that it's true, and I agree. Hopefully it will come sooner than we think though :) But, a High Speed Train would get a lot more use than the corridor currently does, meaning much higher revenue. Second, Toronto-Montreal tickets are only $70 with current service, and there's no way the price will triple just for high speed rail, when you take into account the revenue they can rake in with the millions of added passengers.

sjc said:
They could reach Bermuda from Ottawa, Montreal, Halifax or Boston. The Caribbean (at least the western half) would need a more southerly stopping point, maybe Myrtle Beach?
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I'm pretty sure that using larger aircraft from say, Downsview, they could reach all of those destinations without stopping. Of course, from the people they could attract with a quick, painless plane ride from downtown, one stop is probably fine.
 
It's got a longer runway, and could hold bigger aircraft with longer range for, say, flights to Western Canada or Southern US
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I would suspect that Downsview does not have Canadian nor US customs in place. Of course, this can change.
 
kEiThZ said:
I dunno how important Buffalo and Rochester are to them (though I'd agree that they are good choices - especially if they can tie up with a US carrier).
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A lot of Torontonians drive down to Buffalo just to fly out of the airport there, and avoid Pearson and Air Canada's money-grubbing near-monopoly.

If Porter flew directly to Buffalo airport, I bet they would quickly become the de facto "first leg" of many Toronto-U.S. trips.
 
^ Would you rather fly to Buffalo, then to a hub, then to your destination or take Porter to the hub and then travel on from there? With Porter now (or in a few months) connecting directly to the hubs of several major US carriers, Buffalo might not be that important:

Chicago-Midway (Southwest, AirTran)
Cincinnati (Delta)
Cleveland (Continental)
Detroit (Northwest)
Newark (Continental)
Philadelphia (US Airways)
Washington-Dulles (United) or Washington-Reagan (US Airways)

If they get service going to JFK then they could also hook up with JetBlue. Similarly if they start using O'Hare then there are opportunities to connect to United and American Airlines. O'Hare is a major hub for both.

I am hoping that Porter manages to tie up with a major US carrier so that Canadians will be able to get discounts on US flights through them.
 
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what is less expensive?

free flight on american airlines, pearson > o'hare > pearson (taxes are $120)

or

porter flight person > o'hare > pearson

thanks! :)
 
A lot of the fees that apply to Pearson also apply to the Island though. So it's not like anybody would save much if they were flying to Buffalo instead of driving. But if you are going to fly anyway, the cost and time savings of having a connection from the Island to these hubs could definitely make a big difference.
 
What about Continental? Two of their three hubs are close (EWR and CLE), Porter flies to Newark already, and Cleveland is really close by, a hop, skip and jump on a Q400. Continental is probably the best of the US legacy carriers, with competition with US Airways (which ranks worst in staisfaction) Untied, NorthWorst, Delta and AA.
 
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^ Continental would be a great fit except for the fact that they are joining Star Alliance in October...and Air Canada won't look too kindly on their alliance partners cutting deals with a competitor. An ideal partner for Porter would be one that has minimal exposure to Canada but a decent enough US network to cater to the needs of Porter's US-bound customers.
 
Southwest would be a good partner with lots of connections west through Chicago and Detroit. It wouldn't help much for eastern US destinations, though.
 
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