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

[adma]

It's funny how public opinion can change like that? If that same election were held again, knowing what we know now, Miller would lose badly.

Really? Where's the concrete proof that the critical mass has turned overwhelmingly back in favour of a connection, let alone to the point where they'd defeat Miller on that issue?

My feeling is that if "Miller would lose badly", it'd be on grounds other than the airport connection business...

 

[Second_in_pie]

I'm sad that I'm not a resident of Toronto, cuz if I was I'd boot Miller's ass. I'm not saying he hasn't done any good for Toronto. But Toronto isn't flourishing like it should with a cooperative provincial government. McGuinty would be the perfect premier with whom to institute a continuous subway-building program.

This is what I'm thinking. No other Mayor in their right mind would do what Miller's doing right now, after having so much money handed to them from the province on a silver plate. Subways and Transit City is the best example of this, and McGuinty would be the perfect premier to promise Toronto decades of future subway development. Heck, he'd probably even give us subways on top of LRT and BRT and various other RTs. It seems that York Region is actually the only region in the entire GTA that's really tapping into this opportunity, and I assume that if Highway 7 was any further ahead in development, they'd be asking the province for a subway along there too!

 

[Dan416]

Really? Where's the concrete proof that the critical mass has turned overwhelmingly back in favour of a connection, let alone to the point where they'd defeat Miller on that issue?

My feeling is that if "Miller would lose badly", it'd be on grounds other than the airport connection business...

Concrete proof? This is a message board, not a newspaper. Idle speculation is our business.

That said, the feeling I get from this board is that the majority are in favour of a bridge at this juncture. Whether this board is representative of Toronto as a whole is unknown, but it is representative of something.

 

[EnviroTO]

If what you say was true, Air Canada would most certainly have cut its schedule down, bought a few more A321s and filled them up to save on gas. Airlines are after all, arguably the most fuel conscious organizations in business.

If there was no competition they would do exactly that... probably even go with more 767s. When large aircraft are low on cargo (less luggage weight to go between destinations which have more short-term business and less long-term travellers) and low on fuel (not much fuel required to go Toronto to Montreal), they are able to climb much faster than on typical long haul flights. Fuel consumption is about 27% lower per 10,000ft higher in altitude (alternatively 37% higher per 10,000ft lower in altitude) so if a Q400 bests the fuel economy of an A321 on a short haul it does so marginally at best. I highly doubt even that because aircraft specs for range are based on taking off at MTOW... something an A321 only going from Toronto to Montreal is very unlikely to be doing. In no way would a Q400 best a 767 or 777 configured for domestic with only luggage and no cargo.

 

[kEiThZ]

If there was no competition they would do exactly that... probably even go with more 767s. When large aircraft are low on cargo (less luggage weight to go between destinations which have more short-term business and less long-term travellers) and low on fuel (not much fuel required to go Toronto to Montreal), they are able to climb much faster than on typical long haul flights. Fuel consumption is about 27% lower per 10,000ft higher in altitude (alternatively 37% higher per 10,000ft lower in altitude) so if a Q400 bests the fuel economy of an A321 on a short haul it does so marginally at best. I highly doubt even that because aircraft specs for range are based on taking off at MTOW... something an A321 only going from Toronto to Montreal is very unlikely to be doing. In no way would a Q400 best a 767 or 777 configured for domestic with only luggage and no cargo.

I won't get too technical but you are making several very flawed assumptions. To help you out, here's a good reference site from NASA that explains all the different engine types and gives the appropriate equations:

http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/airplane/guided.htm

You'll notice a few things if you do the math. Turboprops hit the cruise altitude much faster. And they are still more efficient at cruise altitude then their turbofan equipped counterparts flying 10-15 000 feet higher (MOA 27000 ft for a Q400 vs. 39000 for an A321...the difference in cruise is about 10k I believe 23 vs 33). The only real reason turboprops haven't gained more acceptance has been because of their slower speeds (which becomes important for any flight greater than 500 nm) and issues of public image. If you value fuel efficiency over speed for short and medium distances you use props. That's why most military transports are equipped with turboprops. They need to be able to climb quickly, hit cruise altitude, burn as little fuel as possible and then ingress and egress from the drop zone quickly. When Air Forces pay several times the commercial rates for fuel, they are far more likely to study fuel efficiency in-depth than any airline. And they don't have public image issues to worry about. Soldiers will fly on turboprops even if civvies won't.

You are right that widebodies can be used domestically. However, with the exception of Japan, nobody uses large widebodies like a 777 domestically. If that made sense then the A380 would certainly have gotten more sales than it has. The Japanese only do it because of capacity issues, not because of fuel consumption. A 767 does make sense for longer trips like New York-LA but not for a 300nm trip like Toronto-Montreal. Because of the altitude needed for cruise, the 767 flying to Montreal might not hit cruise until it hits Kingston. This is reality when you are dealing with air traffic control and step climbs. And I am not exaggerating that one bit. Hop on a flight to Montreal on a AC 767 and use a stop watch to estimate how long you actually cruise for and where you actually hit cruising altitude. Till you hit cruise, the fact that your TSFC (fuel efficiency) improves with altitude does not matter, because you are using climb thrust settings (which requires far more fuel than cruise). A turboprop on the other hand hits its cruise altitude much, much quicker. This is due to a combination of a steeper climb gradient (a key advantage of turboprops) and a lower cruising altitude (less steps). That's why it's understood that for anything less than a 500nm trip a turboprop is both faster and more fuel efficient. And that's why turboprop sales are taking off. Bombardier is now looking into making a 90 seat version of the Q400....the small size of turboprops being another feature that has held them back (the tend to compete with 70 seat regional jets more than mainline service).

Also, note that not all jet engines are built the same. The A321 has an engine with a bypass ratio of 5.5:1. It's more efficient than its 767 stablemate with an engine running on 4.66:1 but far less efficient than the GE90s hanging off the 777 which have a 9:1 BPR. The only aircraft in AC livery that comes close to besting a Q400 on fuel consumption then is the 777 and its highly unlikely that AC would deploy that on short-haul routes. I suppose you're right in that if we were a Soviet bloc country with a state run airline with no competitors than AC could reduce its Toronto-Montreal flights to 3 per day and put all those passengers on to 777s. Of course, since this strategy works even better for longer ranging trips, service to Halifax would be reduced to once per day and service to Vancouver to twice per day. Ahhh, the benefits of central planning.

EDIT: And of course all that still does not include the significantly reduced fuel consumption that results from less ground handling which comes from operating out of the Island. Essentially, the Island has become a purpose-built airport, meant for shuttling passengers to/from Ottawa and Montreal.

 

[casaguy]

The Porter Air death watch is officially over

MARCUS GEE
Last updated on Saturday, Jul. 25, 2009 04:16AM EDT
mgee@globeandmail.com

Throughout their long struggle against common sense, opponents of the island airport always had what they thought was a surefire, slam-dunk argument. Even if the airport was not the blight on nature and crime against God that they said it was, no one was using it.

That claim has just gone up in smoke. Figures released by the Toronto Port Authority this week showed that a dramatic increase in fees-paying passengers has earned the TPA its first profit in 10 years of existence. More than 258,000 people departed from the airport in 2008, nearly double the 2007 figure. Add in arrivals, and around half a million people used the island, more than during its last heyday in the mid-eighties and a far cry from the dismal 30,000 a year earlier this decade.

And all because of a wise-guy raccoon. The growing popularity of Porter Airlines, the upstart company with the spokescoon as its mascot, has buried for good and all the idea that the airport would never attract enough users to justify its existence. It should bury the stubborn opposition of Mayor David Miller, too. Mr. Miller ran his first campaign for mayor on his opposition to a bridge linking the mainland to the airport. He won that battle - the bridge was cancelled - but lost the war when Porter took off regardless.

Porter's success has taken island-airport bashers aback. For years, they argued that the pathetic number of passengers who actually flew in and out of the island was proof that there was simply no demand for an island-based short-hop service. After all, several airlines, from City Express to Air Ontario to Air Canada Jazz, failed to make much of a go on the island despite the convenience of a runway eight minutes by cab from Bay Street. If they couldn't make it, nobody could, and the airport was a useless waste of good tarmac.

Then came Porter. Since entrepreneur Robert Deluce launched its first flight in 2006, the airline has soared. This spring it announced it is spending $45-million to build a new passenger terminal. It plans to increase its fleet to 18 planes by the end of this year. It is expanding its schedule, adding Boston as a destination in September on top of Ottawa, Montreal, Thunder Bay, Halifax, Mt. Tremblant, Quebec City, New York and Chicago. The VIA Rail strike could offer yet more growth opportunities. Porter is offering special discounts to rail passengers stranded by the walkout.

No one can say for sure whether Porter is a permanent fixture, given the failure rate for small airlines in Canada, but its growth has already proven beyond doubt the appeal of flying out of the island. It will become still more attractive with the new terminal and a new, bigger ferry being built by the TPA. There is even talk of a tunnel that would whisk visitors under the Western Gap.

Porter's growth is creating jobs and drawing investment to a city whose manufacturing base is deteriorating. Just as important, it is creating buzz. People love flying Porter, with its hip image and stress on service. They love the convenience of skipping traffic, not to mention the trudge through the endless halls of Pearson. Why spend an hour or two to reach a one-hour flight if you can zip down to the island instead?

Apart from a few grumpy neighbours complaining about airplane noise, in fact, just about everybody has come around to the merits of a thriving island airport. Everybody, that is, except Mr. Miller and his fellow naysayers. They have stood sullenly by as Porter has taken off and the airport has proven its worth. The mayor was notably and pointedly absent when Porter announced its new terminal, a major asset for the city he leads.

"Toronto's waterfront is a place for people to live, work and play and is not an appropriate place for a commercial airport," Mr. Miller said this spring. "It is impossible to realize our [waterfront] vision and accomplish all we are working toward with multiple daily commercial flights in the vicinity."

How, exactly, low-noise turboprop aircraft flying to the island can spoil this waterfront dream is a bit of a mystery. People downtown manage to live, work and play around the Gardiner, with its floods of noisy cars. They live, work and play around the railway yards and the bus terminal. This is a not Chatham. It's a big city. Seeing or hearing an airplane downtown should not come as a shock (and unless you're pretty close to the island, Porter's planes are not much seen or heard).

But the argument shows how muddled the case against the airport can be. Opponents used to say that it was wrong because it would never attract enough business. Now that it is thriving, they say it is wrong because it will attract too much.

Porter's success is a decisive argument for the island airport. Pre-Porter, it was implausible to argue that the airport was a threat to the city instead of a bonus. In the Porter era, it is simply incredible.

 

[kEiThZ]

Porter's opponents will say and advocate for just about anything to get rid of the Island airport. It borders on fanaticism. They will advocate running diesel trains through other neighbourhoods (causing localized pollution that they don't experience from the airport) to get rid of the airport. Of course, that won't do much, because not all of Porter's customers come from downtown. So then they suggest that it's better to consolidate air traffic in one location (as long as they don't live near it - who cares about those poor folk in Rexdale and Malton). Of course when you point out that for a Toronto-Montreal flight that means burning 10% of the fuel taxiing and waiting at Pearson, they suggest it does not matter since its at one location. Next with zero understanding of the aviation industry, air operations or aircraft technology, they'll suggest that Air Canada's decade and a half old narrowbodies are somehow more fuel efficient than the Q400. If you point out that Air Canada has been whittling down its Airbus narrowbody fleet and switching to 75 and 90 seat Embraers with the same structural efficiencies as the Q400, they'll somehow make the nonsensical argument that a jet is still more efficient than a turboprop...ignoring common sense and physics which says the faster you go the more fuel you burn. To top it all off, the same type of folks who rail about big business will support an airline duopoly (air Canada/Westjet) if it means killing Porter and the Island.

In my books, these folks are much worse than the Weston NIMBYs.

 

[Whoaccio]

Well, I had to put oven mitts on this morning to stop myself from tearing out my eyeballs at the utter stupidity of Peggy Nash's article in the Star. Though I am unaware of any formal link between Nash and CAIR, it is this kind of Naomi Kleinist ridiculousness that permeates the entire anti-Porter crowd. I suppose it isn't surprising a demographic which seems to base itself around blaming Margaret Thatcher has difficulty with rudimentary economics, but I didn't expect them to write perhaps the worst policy related paper in months (see bolded passage). I await the inevitable rejoinder by people who never travel north of Bloor that bike lanes along the 401 will render Porter pointless. Thank god for Gerrard Kennedy.

Peggy Nash

As chief negotiator for the CAW in the recent round of talks with Air Canada, I have seen first-hand the shortcomings of privatizing and deregulating key sectors of our economy.

After months of bargaining, all five Air Canada unions have now agreed to cost-neutral collective agreements for a period of 21 months. We've joined the retirees in agreeing to allow Air Canada a funding moratorium on past contributions to the pension plan for the same period. This is a funding risk that will be borne by the employees and retirees in order to help Air Canada through bad times.

Air Canada is once again teetering on the brink of bankruptcy protection (CCAA), after just emerging from CCAA six years ago.

At that time, the courts approved a plan that saw Air Canada Enterprises (ACE) take on the role of major shareholder of Air Canada. ACE spun off key profitable segments of Air Canada, such as the Aeroplan rewards program, the maintenance section, and its regional carrier, Air Canada Jazz.

These were sold for huge profits that benefited the investors, especially U.S. hedge funds, and the key executives, including Robert Milton, who happily pocketed his share. This is the kind of irresponsible corporate behaviour that is driving Americans crazy but doesn't seem to attract much notice here in Canada.

Throughout this process, Air Canada workers have borne the brunt of the restructuring. Under bankruptcy they gave up more than $2 billion in cost savings to Air Canada only to see this money travel right into the pockets of the investors.

The airline is so short-staffed that when bad weather hit last December during the holiday period, Canadian air travel ground to a halt and there was not enough staff to deal with the crisis. The travelling public took out its frustrations on the same workers who were trying to hold the operation together.

Opposition to so-called Big Government and the Nanny State fostered the climate that led to Air Canada's current precarious state. In Canada and around the world, governments of all stripes fell into the trap of "the private sector does it better."

Certainly this philosophy made some people very rich, but it also left some governments nearly bankrupt, eroded key services like health care and transportation, and exposed a philosophy of greed that works against the public interest. Ask anyone affected by the financial meltdown inflicted on the world by Wall Street how effective the unregulated private sector can be.

Airline deregulation has led to the bankruptcy and disappearance of dozens of companies with all the usual pain and heartache for the staff and travelling public. Since Air Canada was privatized it has lost a grand total of almost $6 billion.

The latest downturn in the economy has created a crisis for many of the world's airlines, but for companies like Air Canada, which was already in a precarious state, the loss of revenue, the poor hedging of fuel prices, currency fluctuations, and the poor state of pension plan investments added to its economic difficulty.

Competing companies like West Jet and Porter predictably react by adding more airline capacity to the market, even when travel is declining, in the hope of further damaging Air Canada so that they can gain more market share. This illogical behaviour is encouraged under our current "anything goes" air travel regime.

Unions have once again done the responsible thing by holding the line and trying to keep the company out of bankruptcy, with retirees joining in the effort. But ultimately, we need some sanity and some regulation restored to our air travel.

This doesn't mean returning to the old ways. A modern regulatory system would prevent the dramatic swings in the airline sector by imposing responsible limits on the overall capacity growth of carriers. It would stop the destructive attacks of one company on another through excess capacity.

It would also mean our federal government taking an equity stake in Air Canada – not buying the whole company or running the day-to-day operation, but helping with its long-term financial stability.

If the alternative is a complete foreign takeover, such as happened with our railway system, keeping our government involved in our national air carrier is definitely preferable.

The travelling public in Canada, and the workforce who serve them, have endured enough.

Let's not let another travel business needlessly go under. It's time to put some sanity back into our national airline.

Peggy Nash is the assistant to CAW national president Ken Lewenza and a former NDP MP for Parkdale-High Park.

P.S. In a mood of vindictiveness, I intend to assemble a highlight reel of stupid anti-Porter comments made over the past few years by these luddites. For a brief taste, consider the poorly (with retrospect) named PorterWatcher's comment back in '07: "I’m glad to see that the morality and character of Torontonians is superior to that of Porter’s CEO and investors. On principle, the people of Toronto are not using Porter. They care about their city, their waterfront and the 14 million people who visit the waterfront every year. Porter and its backers, incredibly, are raising their middle finger to those 14 million people and will now receive an expensive lesson in crossing those people."

 

[sjc]

I think deregulation has worked out just fine. It used to (10 years ago) cost $800 to fly to Ottawa from Toronto for the day, whether I flew from the Island or from Pearson. $750 if I got a seat sale. I can now fly there for between $200 and $300.

If Air Canada was to go under, others would step in to supply air service.

EDIT: The one downside is that because I had to buy full fare tickets back then (no discounted tickets if you didn't stay over Saturday), I could buy 4-packs of business class upgrades for $80 ($20 per upgrade) that I could use to get more comfortable travel. On the other hand, they were no good for flying from the Island so I didn't get to use them very much.

 

[Woodbridge_Heights]

Well, I had to put oven mitts on this morning to stop myself from tearing out my eyeballs at the utter stupidity of Peggy Nash's article in the Star. Though I am unaware of any formal link between Nash and CAIR, it is this kind of Naomi Kleinist ridiculousness that permeates the entire anti-Porter crowd. I suppose it isn't surprising a demographic which seems to base itself around blaming Margaret Thatcher has difficulty with rudimentary economics, but I didn't expect them to write perhaps the worst policy related paper in months (see bolded passage). I await the inevitable rejoinder by people who never travel north of Bloor that bike lanes along the 401 will render Porter pointless. Thank god for Gerrard Kennedy.



P.S. In a mood of vindictiveness, I intend to assemble a highlight reel of stupid anti-Porter comments made over the past few years by these luddites. For a brief taste, consider the poorly (with retrospect) named PorterWatcher's comment back in '07: "I’m glad to see that the morality and character of Torontonians is superior to that of Porter’s CEO and investors. On principle, the people of Toronto are not using Porter. They care about their city, their waterfront and the 14 million people who visit the waterfront every year. Porter and its backers, incredibly, are raising their middle finger to those 14 million people and will now receive an expensive lesson in crossing those people."

What I find ironic is that she seems to think that regulation will result in numerous airlines (usually that's not the case) competing, however she only supports the government funding one airline, Air Canada (which makes logical sense. Why should the government fund competing airlines. It'd be competing with itself essentially). Meanwhile she criticizes the competitors, WestJet and Porter for doing just that providing competition.

 

[kEiThZ]

They whine about the shareholders getting a payout. What they often don't mention is that Milton's plan monetized Air Canada's capital base at high prices which they used to recapitalize a rapidly aging fleet. There was no way the government would have funded that. The second benefit of Milton's plan is that many of those assets are being bought back now at lower prices during the recession.

 

[Automation Gallery]

Profitable despite mayor's vision

Jul 28, 2009 04:30 AM
Re: Profit takes off at Island airport, July 23

It was good to read about the success of the Toronto Island Airport and Porter Airlines in these difficult times. What I do find disturbing is our mayor's non-support for a company that is adding jobs and much needed tax money to Toronto. Mayor David Miller is upset that the airport ruins his vision of our lakefront but this vision appears to be condos for the lakefront and the airport runway probably affects the building permits that can be issued.

The "Lakefront Team" needs to visit Chicago again to refresh their memory on how to get it right.

Wayne Walchuk, Toronto

http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/672581

 

[adma]

Look at it this way. If the Porter/Island Airport situation would specifically affect Mayor Miller's reelectabillity chances, then Karen Stintz would be doomed by the fact that Minto didn't turn out so bad, after all...

 

[EnviroTO]

What I do find disturbing is our mayor's non-support for a company that is adding jobs and much needed tax money to Toronto.

The island airport is federal land. I'm not sure buildings at the airport get assessed and pay property tax.

 

[kEiThZ]

Unfortunately when people cite the Chicago example, most of them are talking about Megis Field not Chicago Midway. Translating that to Toronto, maybe we should shutter the Island Airport and build an airport in the Annex.