Pickering Airport (Transport Canada/GTAA, Proposed)

[micheal_can]

Reread the last quote. It's not typical cargo (aircraft/component manufacturing, maintenance, repair, and overhaul firms, avionics installation/repair, or aircraft parts supply and distribution).

Then make Hamilton the cargo hub. It no longer becomes about how close it is to people, just whether it has a good access to a major highway.

Perhaps the best thing to do is look at an example where there is two big airports, and only one is passenger.

In Montreal, Mirabel had about 42,500 aircraft movements in 2022 while Trudeau had had about 200,000. That's 20%.

Meanwhile Pearson had about 640,000 movements in 2023.

Remove most of the flights along the QC-W corridor to Pearson and how much lower would it be?

 

[turbanplanner]

The context is 2 of the top 5 busiest routes in Canada are Toronto- Montreal and Toronto - Ottawa. With true HSR, those routes could be severely cut, opening up more slots at Pears to other destinations. And if we look at the rest of the routes to Pearson from the rest of the Corridor, if HSR was extended between Windsor and Quebec city, a lot of those slots could open up too.

In short, if HSR ever is built, it will kill the Pickering Airport for scheduled flights. If that is the case, there is no real case for a new Greenfield construction airport.

How many stops will HSR have? The whole point is to have a limited number of stops, so unless you live close to one you'd be better off just driving to the Pickering airport.

Please don’t post links without context. That goes for BlogTO articles, tweets, even news articles. I’m not going to click on a YouTube link with a clickbait headline and watch multiple ads to figure out something that could have been said in one or two sentences.

What's the harm in just not opening it? Though it is nice to have context.

 

[nfitz]

Indeed. An international FedEx cargo aircraft, for example, will often have its content distributed via regional passenger aircraft. For that reason many large cargo-only carriers often prefer to use airports with high passenger connectivity as the alternative requires a fleet of trucks to move good between the cargo airport and the passenger airport.

Looks like the main Fed Ex facility in Montreal is at Mirabel.

What's the harm in just not opening it? Though it is nice to have context.

Sitting through commercials?

Besides, it's just sheer rude - and likely a violation of the rules.

 

[micheal_can]

How many stops will HSR have? The whole point is to have a limited number of stops, so unless you live close to one you'd be better off just driving to the Pickering airport.

As a minimum, those three places, It is not like there are 'milk run' flights between those places.

 

[Tim MacDonald]

Indeed. An international FedEx cargo aircraft, for example, will often have its content distributed via regional passenger aircraft. For that reason many large cargo-only carriers often prefer to use airports with high passenger connectivity as the alternative requires a fleet of trucks to move good between the cargo airport and the passenger airport.

This certainly wasn't the case when I worked for Fedex at YYZ. Unless a package was going to a very remote area, it was likely to move by truck once it arrived in Toronto. As a matter of fact, anything in Southern Ontario and Quebec moved by truck. If you ship something from Toronto to Ottawa or Montreal via Fedex, it never leaves the ground. I think the exceptions are where the Caravans operate which is northern Ontario if I remember correctly.

I've worked for both UPS and Fedex in my younger days. In fact, I was at UPS and sorted the first inbound air packages they had into Canada in 1987. There were two of them (yup just two small packages for their Next Day Air offering) and they came into YHM on an old turbo prop metroliner. It still amazes me to this day to see them operate the MD11into YYZ after that first flight in June of 1987 with just two packages!

Hamilton wasn't the best for Cargo Ops - at least for UPS. Once space became available at Vista, UPS jumped at the chance to move to YYZ. Fedex could have built at YHM in the late 90s but they didn't. They built that massive facility at YYZ. I'm sure that if they could, they would build at Dorval rather than Mirabel. It's got nothing to do with freight interlining to passenger aircraft but everything to do with being close to the metropolitan areas so freight can get to the sort faster.

Less and less freight moves in the belly of passenger jets nowadays for a variety of reasons. The dedicated freighter traffic that comes into YYZ now just blows my mind.

Unless your HSR is hourly, you're not going to see a large reduction in flights. Some flights are also positioning flights to move the airplane for international ops and maintenance visits.

The fascination some members have with high speed rail and a second airport for the GTA I'll just never understand.