Pickering Airport (Transport Canada/GTAA, Proposed)

[CDL.TO]

It's very interesting to watch the debate in London. You won't find too many people arguing that air traffic should be capped (like you see over here). There is a broad consensus, that London's status as a global city is very much reliant on London being a strong aviation hub for the world. The consensus is broad enough that you have crazy plans like Boris Island which was rumoured to cost 23 billion pounds when fully built out.

Interesting perspective. From what I can see, there is huge opposition to air travel and airport expansion there. (Just look at the responses to the Stansted and Heathrow expansion plans.) Opposition is so strong that the only way they can expand air travel capacity is be resorting to grand schemes like a 23 billion pound Boris Island.

 

[Michael62]

This whole thing is a diversion to turn discussion away from the Senate Debate

 

[kEiThZ]

Interesting perspective. From what I can see, there is huge opposition to air travel and airport expansion there. (Just look at the responses to the Stansted and Heathrow expansion plans.) Opposition is so strong that the only way they can expand air travel capacity is be resorting to grand schemes like a 23 billion pound Boris Island.

Opposition in that regard is extremely local. If you live in an area near Heathrow that would be demolished to make room for another runway, you will of course be opposed to the idea that London needs to accomodate more air traffic. Or if you happen to live in certain very large estates as a resident of some national significance, you might also be opposed to the idea. Another issue is the fact that Heathrow is positioned such that aircraft routinely fly their approaches and hold patterns over central London. Hence the desire broadly to relocate the traffic. Again, though, very local concerns.

I still don't see evidence of a broad backlash against increasing air traffic. Indeed, the fact that Boris Island is even on the table should tell you something about how understanding the Brits are about accomodating air traffic. It's taken as accepted fact that capacity has to be increased and that a way to increase capacity has to be found. And so every idea that could potentially do so, with the least political consequences, is put forward. Aviation is so important to the UK, that a sitting mayor (and a competent one at that) is not laughed out of the room when he puts forward a plan to build an airport that would cost the same as our entire regional transport plan.

And keep in mind their entire debate is about a hub airport. London still has Stansted and Gatwick. The former, which lots of Londoners flock to, to catch discount flights to everywhere, and the latter, which serves as a non-network reliever of Heathrow. Those are also supplemented by City and Luton. That's what makes the debate in London remarkable. The entire discussion is not about serving London, in and of itself (which is more true in the case of Toronto and Pickering), their debate is entirely about the economic benefits or consequences about not expanding one of the world's largest international aviation hubs. One could never imagine any Torontonian ever being anywhere near as ambitious.

 

[Woodbridge_Heights]

Excellent point.

That said, when I look at Hamilton, I see so much underused potential. Hamilton needs another parallel runway (for GA) and a proper passenger terminal with airbridge, and some re-ordering of taxiways. Why hasn't that investment been made?

Hamilton is also substantially better suited to capture traffic from the western GTA than Pickering. It's catchment area has a higher population than pickering.

I wonder if Hamilton Airport suffers from some combination of:
- Lack of connectivity, even in the greater Hamilton region I would imagine that it is still easier with highway access and all to get to Pearson
- Landing fees not being a major deciding factor vs Pearson to attract a main carrier. WestJet did fly to Hamilton for a while but then decided that they were better off landing at Pearson and paying a bit more in landing fees than being way out in Hamilton.
- Proximity to Buffalo affecting the value decision. For someone shopping on lowest possible price the savings of going to Buffalo may far outweigh the cost of driving there and crossing the border.
- Other competition cannibalizing the market. Hamilton does not compete with just Pearson (and Buffalo) but it also competes with 'scheduled' airports in London and Waterloo, carving up an already small potential market.
- Lack of a second major national carrier who might choose Hamilton as a hub. With Air Canada as the sole national airline there is little reason for them to give Hamilton anything more that a passing glance. A second national carrier such as Canada3000 might choose Hamilton over Pearson. I say might because we've seen what happened with WestJet

There just seems to so much potential with Hamilton that is unrealized. I've suggested that the 407 be extended Westward and to curl around the bay and meet up with Munro airport. Having a convenient highway connection would make the airport much more attractive to more of the Western GTA.

 

[gweed123]

This whole thing is a diversion to turn discussion away from the Senate Debate

Agreed. I'm sure somewhere in the PMO they have a "To distract from scandal" list. It includes such classics as "prorogue Parliament" and "debate changing the words to the national anthem". "Talk about Senate reform" was probably on that list too, until it became a scandal unto itself. I wouldn't be surprised if you see an announcement for the West or Atlantic Canada in the coming days or weeks if these scandals drag on.

 

[gweed123]

I wonder if Hamilton Airport suffers from some combination of:
- Lack of connectivity, even in the greater Hamilton region I would imagine that it is still easier with highway access and all to get to Pearson
- Landing fees not being a major deciding factor vs Pearson to attract a main carrier. WestJet did fly to Hamilton for a while but then decided that they were better off landing at Pearson and paying a bit more in landing fees than being way out in Hamilton.
- Proximity to Buffalo affecting the value decision. For someone shopping on lowest possible price the savings of going to Buffalo may far outweigh the cost of driving there and crossing the border.
- Other competition cannibalizing the market. Hamilton does not compete with just Pearson (and Buffalo) but it also competes with 'scheduled' airports in London and Waterloo, carving up an already small potential market.
- Lack of a second major national carrier who might choose Hamilton as a hub. With Air Canada as the sole national airline there is little reason for them to give Hamilton anything more that a passing glance. A second national carrier such as Canada3000 might choose Hamilton over Pearson. I say might because we've seen what happened with WestJet

There just seems to so much potential with Hamilton that is unrealized. I've suggested that the 407 be extended Westward and to curl around the bay and meet up with Munro airport. Having a convenient highway connection would make the airport much more attractive to more of the Western GTA.

I wonder if Porter would ever consider using Hamilton as a 2nd GTHA hub, in addition to the Toronto Island. They could set up a Union-style check-in Kiosk at Aldershot, and run a shuttle between there and the airport.

But you're right, if not Porter, than another smaller niche airline would need to make Hamilton their western GTA hub in order to have it be really viable as a relief to Pearson.

 

[MisterF]

Wow that is big news. I have a question though will this be a full fledged international airport from the start or will it begin as a GA airport (replacing buttonville), which is needed and grow into an international airport as needed??? Does anyone have the maps that supposedly were release at the press release?

This is planned as a full fledged international airport. Maybe not on day 1, but it won't be a Buttonville style GA airport. You don't plan an airport that's bigger than Pearson plus large amounts of land around it for industrial development if your only plan is general aviation.

An international airport in Pickering would cost tens of billions of dollars, and would create massive noise pollution problems similar to those in the western GTA near Pearson.

Pearson is well below maximum capacity anyway. If it were to get near maximum capacity, why not build high speed rail instead? HSR would cost a lot of money, but a new airport would cost a lot of money as well.

Yup, and an important thing to remember is that while much of the airport itself would probably be built with private money, the land purchases over 40 years and the cost of infrastructure and services for the airport are huge. High speed rail is the obvious solution to move people between major cities, but the government seems to have an irrational dislike for trains.

Heathrow is blessed with both unusually large aircraft due to the heavy international load (smaller regional flights use other London airports) and it has a spread out load through the day. Pearson experiences a rather dramatic morning and evening commuter period with a ton of tiny aircraft.

This is just the kind of market that high speed rail would serve, and without the drawbacks like pollution, noise, sprawl, and all that extra infrastructure. If international experience is any indication, demand for commuter flights to Ottawa, Montreal, Kingston, and London would drop significantly if HSR were built. Those flights number in the hundreds per day, but people tend to prefer high speed rail for those distances.

Anyway, it's smart for the government to plan for an airport there if it's ever needed in the future, but I'm not convinced it's needed as soon as they say. HSR would cut demand for short hop commuter flights by quite a bit, which would allow Pearson to be used more efficiently.

 

[jje1000]

I think Pickering would do well as a secondary airport for low-cost carriers and some freight. This should leave Pearson to deal with larger airlines and other freight, ensuring that the city has two outlets for air freight on the East and West ends.

 

[EnviroTO]

This is planned as a full fledged international airport. Maybe not on day 1, but it won't be a Buttonville style GA airport. You don't plan an airport that's bigger than Pearson plus large amounts of land around it for industrial development if your only plan is general aviation.

They need to replace Buttonville today. The plan is long term (so far the plan has existed something like 40 years). The question is does it make sense to build a general aviation airport with no room for growth, no plan for growth, and no protections for growth, or do you keep your options open. That is what they have been doing with Pickering from the beginning. The GTAA study, which unfortunately has been taken offline, had maps of the phases starting with GA only. Pearson has a plan where the ultimate state is 6 runways and T3 knocked down and replaced with an expanded T1. That doesn't mean it will ever come to fruition, it just means that the GTAA has laid out a plan to get to maximum capacity.

 

[nfitz]

This whole thing is a diversion to turn discussion away from the Senate Debate

Why would one think this? This project has been in the works for 40 years. The announcement was probably set ages ago.

More importantly, have you seen any significant coverage of this in the media? An article here and there perhaps, but it's hardly causing any debate. It's confirmation of what they were saying previously, so it's not going to be very contentious for most people.

I fail to see why people are so quick to think conspiracy!

 

[rpeters]

doesn't anyone else think it's a tad sleazy and sycophantic to announce North America's largest urban park, and then stick a massive airport (and all the related infrastructure such as highways, warehouses, parking lots, etc) right next to it. It's as if they were buttering up the residents just so they could light them on fire with the airport announcement. I can't think of any other cities that have key urban parks that are also national parks that people are meant to hike and camp in, right next to a large airport. Isn't this area greenbelt anyways? why are we building airports in the greenbelt, is that even legal?

 

[ShonTron]

To be fair, when the Federal government expropriated all that land in the 1970s in what was then Markham, Pickering, Uxbridge and Whitchurch Townships, they took much more land than what was needed for a modern international airport.

The 1970s was the era of the Concorde, of rapid increase of jet travel, a very rapidly expanding GTA. Since then, airport runways at international jet airports have not needed to be lengthened much more than then they were back then, the rate of growth in passenger air-miles has decreased, the population growth of the GTA has slowed on a relative basis, and Malton (later called Pearson) has been able to handle all growth when the crazy forcasts of the late 1960s and early 1970s predicted a major new airport would be necessary to augment or even replace Pearson.

So some of the land snatched simply isn't needed, even for a full-sized international airport in the current era. So why not make it into a park? Some of the expropriated land was ceded to Rouge Park previously.

That doesn't change the sneaky way the Pickering airport revivial announcement was made, though.

 

[Swarez99]

They need to replace Buttonville today. The plan is long term (so far the plan has existed something like 40 years). The question is does it make sense to build a general aviation airport with no room for growth, no plan for growth, and no protections for growth, or do you keep your options open. That is what they have been doing with Pickering from the beginning. The GTAA study, which unfortunately has been taken offline, had maps of the phases starting with GA only. Pearson has a plan where the ultimate state is 6 runways and T3 knocked down and replaced with an expanded T1. That doesn't mean it will ever come to fruition, it just means that the GTAA has laid out a plan to get to maximum capacity.

Pearson has no plans to knock down t3, there plans are plans are to add two new peirs to T1 next to the hammer head peir. GTAA's master plan has always been online, if you can't find it let me know I used to work for company that consulted with GTAA/Air Canada for years. It is public record and should be somewhere, but used to be on there site.

The issue is GTAA first thought there max was 40 Million, than upped to 50 Million and is now around 66-70 Million. Airlines keep jamming more people into planes and airports have dealt with it as well have gotten more efficient in there operations. Future expectations of airports also should be taken with a grain of salt, Mirable was built because people thought Montreal would be a city that would demand 50 Million passengers a year, the city does 13. Hamilton was turned to a passenger airport because it was expected handle 4-5Million, it does under 500,000 now. We now have the island airport even with porter's half full planes it runs around 2 Million a year, this has really turned into the new airport we should focus on and see if it can grow to 3-5 Million, if that happens Pickering won't be needed as anything outside of regional/private jets for 30-40 Years.

The way our system is built up no real LCC can operate here as airports hold the debt and charge airlines high fee's to cover the debt. In the US for example counties usually hold the debt, and get many infrastructure grants from Washington when they need to expand etc. Buffalo's new runway is going to be built by Washington as opposed to the airport/county. So don't expect a LCC to pop up and compete, Jet Blue has been able to land in Canada for 6 years and has chosen not to. South west hasn't even tried.

Keep the land, wait until you really need something, than build. If you really want to spend money, built up Toronto's transit/highway system to improve the economy so another airport may be needed faster.

 

[rbt]

Pearson has no plans to knock down t3, there plans are plans are to add two new peirs to T1 next to the hammer head peir. GTAA's master plan has always been online, if you can't find it let me know I used to work for company that consulted with GTAA/Air Canada for years. It is public record and should be somewhere, but used to be on there site.

The master plans from 2003? and earlier included demolishing T3 and rebuilding Piers ABC as part of Terminal 1 in a larger format (similar to Pier E). Much of the roadway space around T3 was reclaimed for Pier/aircraft pad which is how capacity was ultimately increased.

Some of the T3 roadway and parking space was reclaimed for tarmac.

This was in the very long-term part of the plan (2050's+).

As you say, the current master plan (published 2008) does not show this step.

Sue Anne Levy actually used it as the core of a few articles as a demonstration of government waste; although she seemed to think the demolition was going to happen within a few days of her article being published rather than being 50+ years out.

 

[Dan416]

I'm pretty sure I downloaded a copy of the master plan showing T3 demolished...