Pickering Airport (Transport Canada/GTAA, Proposed)

[Woodbridge_Heights]

This link: http://web.archive.org/web/20040612003718/http://www.gtaa.com/Index.aspx?Sid=Node7/Node7.3/Node7.3.5&Tpl=1

Contains the original late 90's early 2000's Master Plan and shows the planned terminal layout with T3 being taken down. However they have since decided to not demolish T3

 

[gweed123]

If the Pickering Airport does happen, I'd like to see it used primarily for 2 things: GA, and cargo.

The Pickering location has a strategic advantage over Pearson in that a freight spur and terminal can be built at the airport relatively easily. For cargo shipments bound for Pickering eastward, there's a potentially significant time savings to landing at Pickering instead of Pearson, because you don't have to cross Toronto.

Shifting more cargo over to Pickering will help free up runway time at Pearson, which as I understand it is a bigger issue than terminal space.

You can throw in a discount carrier to two at Pickering, but I think it's strategic advantage is cargo/freight, not passengers.

 

[Woodbridge_Heights]

If the Pickering Airport does happen, I'd like to see it used primarily for 2 things: GA, and cargo.

The Pickering location has a strategic advantage over Pearson in that a freight spur and terminal can be built at the airport relatively easily. For cargo shipments bound for Pickering eastward, there's a potentially significant time savings to landing at Pickering instead of Pearson, because you don't have to cross Toronto.

Shifting more cargo over to Pickering will help free up runway time at Pearson, which as I understand it is a bigger issue than terminal space.

You can throw in a discount carrier to two at Pickering, but I think it's strategic advantage is cargo/freight, not passengers.

I've been thinking, at the slight risk of sounding racist but maybe a couple Far East based airlines could be convinced to relocate to Pickering when the time does come. I say this because of the large Asian populations that live in the Markham area and tech companies located there. Would JAL for example find it easier to serve it's market by being located at Pickering vs Pearson.

I agree with you 100% about the Freight+GA traffic initial setup followed by a low cost carrier later in the future.

 

[vegeta_skyline]

I've been thinking, at the slight risk of sounding racist but maybe a couple Far East based airlines could be convinced to relocate to Pickering when the time does come. I say this because of the large Asian populations that live in the Markham area and tech companies located there. Would JAL for example find it easier to serve it's market by being located at Pickering vs Pearson.

I agree with you 100% about the Freight+GA traffic initial setup followed by a low cost carrier later in the future.

Makes sense to me and I don't see how that would be considered racist at all since its a fact; Markham, Richmond Hill & Scarborough all have very high Asian populations and furthermore there's nothing demeaning about making note of that.
http://www.markham.ca/wps/wcm/conne...ERES&CACHEID=17bb0c004f1defb984ea940d8c9f58d1
http://www.richmondhill.ca/documents/demo_profile_richmondhill.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarborough,_Ontario#Demographics

 

[gweed123]

I've been thinking, at the slight risk of sounding racist but maybe a couple Far East based airlines could be convinced to relocate to Pickering when the time does come. I say this because of the large Asian populations that live in the Markham area and tech companies located there. Would JAL for example find it easier to serve it's market by being located at Pickering vs Pearson.

I agree with you 100% about the Freight+GA traffic initial setup followed by a low cost carrier later in the future.

That's a good point. I'm sure that a non-Canadian carrier that doesn't rely much on transfers from other flights (unlike Air Canada for example) could set up shop there, with long haul flights. The key for passenger traffic though is what % of the passengers on those long haul flights are actually beginning or ending in Toronto. Pickering isn't going to have a lot of short-haul connecting flights, so doing transfers may be difficult. This is why a carrier that draws most of it's volume from Toronto would fare well there, but one that relies on transfers (ex: Ottawa-Toronto, Toronto-LAX) wouldn't fare so well, not unless that Ottawa-Toronto flight was located there as well.

So yes, either a foreign airline, or something like American Eagle (I think that's what it's called, the American Airlines short-haul service) would do well there.

 

[kEiThZ]

I've been thinking, at the slight risk of sounding racist but maybe a couple Far East based airlines could be convinced to relocate to Pickering when the time does come. I say this because of the large Asian populations that live in the Markham area and tech companies located there. Would JAL for example find it easier to serve it's market by being located at Pickering vs Pearson.

I agree with you 100% about the Freight+GA traffic initial setup followed by a low cost carrier later in the future.

That's a good point. I'm sure that a non-Canadian carrier that doesn't rely much on transfers from other flights (unlike Air Canada for example) could set up shop there, with long haul flights. The key for passenger traffic though is what % of the passengers on those long haul flights are actually beginning or ending in Toronto. Pickering isn't going to have a lot of short-haul connecting flights, so doing transfers may be difficult. This is why a carrier that draws most of it's volume from Toronto would fare well there, but one that relies on transfers (ex: Ottawa-Toronto, Toronto-LAX) wouldn't fare so well, not unless that Ottawa-Toronto flight was located there as well.

So yes, either a foreign airline, or something like American Eagle (I think that's what it's called, the American Airlines short-haul service) would do well there.

Airlines don't work like that. Connections matter. Fedex operates out of Pearson for a reason. Some of their cargo reaches its final destination on an Air Canada flight from Pearson. It's the same for passenger airlines serving Toronto. Sure, a lot of Asian-Canadians may have Toronto as their final destination. But their margins are so thin, they can't afford to give up connecting pax without substantial operations discounts. ANA for example probably carries at least a few passengers travelling onto the US or to Ottawa or Montreal with Air Canada. Pickering would have to be beyond free to operate from, to draw a major network carrier.

Oh, and JAL stopped service to Toronto. Air Canada and ANA have a nice little Star Alliance monopoly to Japan from Toronto.

 

[ShonTron]

Airlines don't work like that. Connections matter. Fedex operates out of Pearson for a reason. Some of their cargo reaches its final destination on an Air Canada flight from Pearson. It's the same for passenger airlines serving Toronto. Sure, a lot of Asian-Canadians may have Toronto as their final destination. But their margins are so thin, they can't afford to give up connecting pax without substantial operations discounts. ANA for example probably carries at least a few passengers travelling onto the US or to Ottawa or Montreal with Air Canada. Pickering would have to be beyond free to operate from, to draw a major network carrier.

Oh, and JAL stopped service to Toronto. Air Canada and ANA have a nice little Star Alliance monopoly to Japan from Toronto.

Pearson will still have several key advantages: closer to the population centre of the Toronto region than Pickering, better highway connections, better transit connections (especially the UP Express, either in its planned form or as a semi-express transit operation), decent airport hotels and conference centres, and all the airline connections, even those that are not code-shared. Airporter services won't like multiple airports either.

You're not going to get Cathay Pacific, Korean or EVA out of Pearson. Air Canada/Star Alliance dominates the Toronto to Asia Pacific routes anyway.

I can only see charter flights to sun destinations and a few regional connectors wanting to fly out of Pickering. I certainly see Pickering as something similar to Westchester County Airport (HPN), New York's oft-forgotten fourth airport:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westchester_County_Airport. Flights to YUL and YYC perhaps, maybe a few US airports like EWR/LGA/JFK and ORD.

 

[Swarez99]

Pearson will still have several key advantages: closer to the population centre of the Toronto region than Pickering, better highway connections, better transit connections (especially the UP Express, either in its planned form or as a semi-express transit operation), decent airport hotels and conference centres, and all the airline connections, even those that are not code-shared. Airporter services won't like multiple airports either.

You're not going to get Cathay Pacific, Korean or EVA out of Pearson. Air Canada/Star Alliance dominates the Toronto to Asia Pacific routes anyway.

I can only see charter flights to sun destinations and a few regional connectors wanting to fly out of Pickering. I certainly see Pickering as something similar to Westchester County Airport (HPN), New York's oft-forgotten fourth airport:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westchester_County_Airport. Flights to YUL and YYC perhaps, maybe a few US airports like EWR/LGA/JFK and ORD.

All the big/mainline carriers are going to want to stay in Pearson, all have major code share and alliances built up. They want to go where everyone else is for that reason, you move one to a new airport by force and they can't make money they will just pull out of city. There is a reason all major airlines want more access to JFK in NY (despite being one of the more expensive airports in states), and in Heathrow (again being expensive) International carriers want/need major international airports.

When I worked in industry we heard numbers from Pearson could handle 50 Million to 85 Million, if its closer to the later no point building a new airport for 50 years. Also we have a 2nd Cargo airport, its Hamilton, 3rd busest Cargo airport in Canada, and you do not built Airports for leisure travelers. Pearson is not done expanding as of yet and can at minimum double capacity, Billy Bishop can double to triple capacity (depending whats allowed). There is no major need to an airport or the short term future. This will turn into something like Abbotsford, suppose to be the other airport, but people in Vancouver still use YVR or go south of border. We have same options here.

 

[kEiThZ]

Bellingham is closer to Vancouver than Buffalo to Toronto.

 

[diminutive]

I'm still quite sceptical of the underlying planning rationale for a Pickering Airport. YYZ's upper limit seems to be in the 60m passenger range, so we're at roughly half of this capacity. Since 2000 passenger traffic has averaged about 1-2% per year, which is line with the GTA's general population growth. I'm not sure why air traffic into Toronto would grow disproportionally to population growth. At that rate we wouldn't reach Pearson's capacity until well beyond a functional planning time frame.

I realize the GTAA claims 2027 will require more capacity, but that seems wildly optimistic. Why on earth would air travel into Toronto double within the next two decades? Presumably if there was such a foreseeable capacity constraint the GTAA would be more aggressive with the sixth runway and terminal expansions at Pearson, but there doesn't seem to be any rush with those projects.

If the issue is related to peak-traffic, building a new airport is just a terrible solution. Rejigging landing fees at Pearson to incentivise carriers to use larger aircraft or to spread flights out of peak hours seem like far better solutions. Ideal? Maybe not, but surely more cost effective than building a new airport. Moreover, since we are discussing capacity well out past 2030, carriers will have ample time to adjust their fleet makeup.

It also seems like there are sufficient reliever airports in Southern Ontario. Waterloo, Hamilton and London and Buffalo all seem just as capable of relieving Pearson's non-connecting regional traffic as Pickering could. That they haven't thusfar really suggests that Pearson isn't in terrible need of 'relief.' If YTZ gets its runway extension, combined with upcoming C-series type aircraft, you'd think it could relieve at least part of Pearson's non-connecting regional traffic.

Finally, if Pickering is just to be GA airport, my response would depend on how much that would cost. It's hard to see any sort of public good type argument for GA flights though. I'm sympathetic to the activity and have enjoyed it myself, but it's not ultimately any different from yachting or horseback riding. Goodluck getting the government to loan either of those hundreds of millions of dollars.

 

[rbt]

I'm still quite sceptical of the underlying planning rationale for a Pickering Airport. YYZ's upper limit seems to be in the 60m passenger range, so we're at roughly half of this capacity. Since 2000 passenger traffic has averaged about 1-2% per year, which is line with the GTA's general population growth. I'm not sure why air traffic into Toronto would grow disproportionally to population growth. At that rate we wouldn't reach Pearson's capacity until well beyond a functional planning time frame.

It's optimistic. Surely it's better to have a ready-to-go plan sitting on the shelf which could be tendered and built within 3 or 4 years than to run out of capacity while waiting for EAs and other prep work to be completed.

Nobody will complain if in 2022 Pearson decides to delay tendering construction for a few more years just as nobody is complaining that Pier G was delayed a few years.

Waiting until your past capacity is how transportation planning in Toronto works and it hasn't delivered wonderful results. It's nice that GTAA is taking some modest steps to ensure they don't get overwhelmed.


All that said, since 1996 Pearson has had a 45% passenger growth despite a few global obstacles to growth during that time period and the launch of a competing airport. The Island Airport is rapidly approaching capacity based on their current agreements. Future growth will need to be at Pearson after 2020.


Using Pearson's historical passenger growth rate (2.5% per year), they would hit 60 million around 2035.

The federal government suddenly reducing the land rent rate to a reasonable value (Pearson paid IIRC $1.6B over the last decade in land rent, the land is valued at under $300M); and that growth rate would jump beyond 2.5%.

 

[diminutive]

It's optimistic. Surely it's better to have a ready-to-go plan sitting on the shelf which could be tendered and built within 3 or 4 years than to run out of capacity while waiting for EAs and other prep work to be completed.

It's 30m extra passengers in two decades... That strikes me as more than optimistic.

I'm hardly opposed to relevant agencies conducting studies to define what Pickering could look like (particularly answering whether this would be a simple GA airport or a bona fide commercial airport). I'd also be curious for them to conduct research for them to conduct research which could answer how Pickering could actually relieve Pearson while Hamilton/Buffalo/London/YTZ couldn't.

That said, the Federal announcement specifically suggested moving well beyond preliminary planning. Maybe that's just a publicity stunt, to claim that the airport will open in the 2020s, but as long as that's what their stated goal is I feel comfortable saying that ought not be a priority at the moment. If they said they 'pledge to continue preliminary research and site design so that in 2030 they will be prepared to make a decision based on relevant experience,' there'd be no issue from me. But they didn't say that.

Waiting until your past capacity is how transportation planning in Toronto works and it hasn't delivered wonderful results. It's nice that GTAA is taking some modest steps to ensure they don't get overwhelmed.

Pearson is nowhere near capacity. It's likely a new airport wouldn't even be required until midway through this century, if ever. Being proactive is great and all, but there's hardly any need to rush on this.

More over, it's hardly fair to characterize Toronto infrastructure as being chronically undercapacity. Pearson isn't. Hamilton isn't. YTZ could be expanded, though obviously not without political challenges. VIA certainly isn't undercapacity, for what that's worth.

 

[diminutive]

The comments in this article in the Star nicely summarize my point of view on the matter:

But aviation analysts argue another airport simply isn’t needed at this time.

“It’s a dumb idea. There is no demand for that airport,†said Fred Lazar, a business professor at York University. “If there was the demand, Hamilton would be a thriving airport.â€

Even though many cities around the world, such as New York and London, have several airports within their metropolitan areas, Lazar argued the Greater Toronto Area doesn’t have the population base. Plus, airlines would be reluctant to split services and operations between Pearson and Pickering.

“The market is just not there to support it,†he said. “I don’t think Pearson will be at capacity in 2027.â€

Pearson spokesman Scott Armstrong said the airport handled 35 million passengers last year, up 4.4 per cent from a year earlier, and there were 433,000 takeoffs and landings, up 1.2 per cent.

“Over the next 15 or 20 years, we could get to 60 million passengers, but long-term planning is far from an exact science,†Armstrong said, adding that Pearson is focused on using its existing infrastructure before considering any additional projects, though it can build a sixth runway if needed.

Armstrong said Pearson, which operates as a not-for-profit private company, is still growing, adding new carriers, including Russia’s Aeroflot and EgyptAir this month alone.

By contrast, the three main New York area airports handled more than 120 million passengers last year.

Robert Kokonis, an analyst with AirTrav research firm, said Pickering would essentially be the fourth commercial airport in the region, including Hamilton and Toronto’s island airport, where Porter Airlines hopes to expand its operations.

If Porter, which wants to fly Bombardier’s new CSeries jet to cities such as Vancouver and Los Angeles, wins permission, other carriers, such as WestJet and Air Canada, will also want slots there, he said.

While airports aren’t built overnight, Kokonis argued that master plans are full of economic assumptions — “a mug’s game†this far out in time.

“It’s an awful lot of money to build a new airport,†he said, adding the federal government could use some of that money to offer rent relief to Canadian airports to make them more competitive with U.S. airports, which have been drawing loads of Canadian travellers in recent years.

Kokonis argued that Hamilton could also be developed more, especially because it has no curfew, so planes can take off and land around the clock, unlike Pearson and the island airport.

I'd paraphrase that to say that at this time and in the foreseeable future, this is a superfluous project. We might as well keep all of our options open, but at this point discussion of a reliever at Pickering are very premature. Between now and when this project could be needed, there are way too many intervening variables to make a reasoned discussion.

 

[Woodbridge_Heights]

It still is intended to start out as a GA airport, picking up Buttonvilles traffic; As well as Pearson off loading it's GA/corporate traffic. While being able to expand to commercial traffic when needed...

- In the GTAA's last master plan they stated that being able to off load some of it's GA/Private/corporate air traffic would free up airside capacity and allow them to serve more passengers. According to their website Toronto Pearson saw approx 37 000 non terminal aircraft (I'm assuming cargo and commercial airlines count as terminal traffic. If they could off load that and convert it to commercial air traffic at 100 pax per aircraft (a lot more 737's and 319's/320's at Pearson) we are talking about close to 4 million additional pax per year.

 

[TrickyRicky]

I don't know if talk about a Pickering Airport is premature but what I do know is that the government should stand firm and resist all pressure to use this land for other kinds of development or for creating a park.

They should also be clear to all community stakeholders that they have every intention of developing the land for commercial aviation purposes, if this is indeed needed in 25 years or 300.