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Toronto Pearson International Airport

kEiThZ said:
At the current rate, it would take over a half century to pay off the existing $6.8 billion in debt. And privatization isn't free. The whole goal is to sell the aiport so the government gets money to build new infrastructure. So add several billion more to that existing $6.8 billion. Possibly even a doubling of debt (article says $5-7 billion for the sale of TPIA). But they'd no longer be paying rent to the feds, so they'd have another $180 million annually at their disposal. But with $300 million annually to pay down $14 billion in debt and the interest of that extra $7 billion, there will be no fiscal room at all to improve the airport and do grand projects like the transit hub.
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What if the government decides to sell the airport in order to build the transit hub? The transit hub would then be a public asset, with the airport itself being a private one. The ROI on the airport would likely be higher than on the transit hub anyway.
 
gweed123 said:
What if the government decides to sell the airport in order to build the transit hub? The transit hub would then be a public asset, with the airport itself being a private one. The ROI on the airport would likely be higher than on the transit hub anyway.
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There's a few fundamental problems with the idea.

1) No guarantee as of now that the sale of airports is supposed to be for re-investment. As it stands, it looks like the sale of airports is to bring cash into general revenue, ostensibly to boost infrastructure spending. But this could easily turn out like the 407 ETR, where the government pockets a short-term revenue boost for the political gain while nothing real materializes on the investment front, or the proceeds of the sale are directed to other infrastructure priorities.

2) If the airport is sold and then pays partly or wholly for the transit hub, than you have the airport now relying entirely on a facility they don't own and control for the reception hall and check-in area for both terminals. I can't imagine any entity buying the airport would be happy with the insistence that they agree to be held hostage to another entity.

This could all be equally achieved by guaranteeing a 50-70 year holiday on rent payments along with a loan package from the CIB.
 
kEiThZ said:
There's a few fundamental problems with the idea.

1) No guarantee as of now that the sale of airports is supposed to be for re-investment. As it stands, it looks like the sale of airports is to bring cash into general revenue, ostensibly to boost infrastructure spending. But this could easily turn out like the 407 ETR, where the government pockets a short-term revenue boost for the political gain while nothing real materializes on the investment front, or the proceeds of the sale are directed to other infrastructure priorities.

2) If the airport is sold and then pays partly or wholly for the transit hub, than you have the airport now relying entirely on a facility they don't own and control for the reception hall and check-in area for both terminals. I can't imagine any entity buying the airport would be happy with the insistence that they agree to be held hostage to another entity.

This could all be equally achieved by guaranteeing a 50-70 year holiday on rent payments along with a loan package from the CIB.
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All good points. I don't think a 407 type of thing is likely to happen with this government though. They aren't as bottom line conscious as the Harris government was.

I also figured the CIB would be more into helping fund lines as opposed to single stations (even if it is a really big station). Lines actually generate revenue, and I don't know how this hub could be easily monetized short of charging a surplus to travel to it (like in Vancouver), or by placing a surcharge on each plane ticket. The line from investment to return is a lot more convoluted with a single station on a bunch of different existing lines than it is for building a new line.
 
Quick question for flight nerds:

Why doesn't Pearson have any direct flights to Buffalo? For instance, there are 20 daily flights between Seattle and Vancouver for a comparable distance. Also, I believe Air Canada had flights from Toronto to Rochester and Syracuse a few years back.
 
mjl08 said:
Quick question for flight nerds:

Why doesn't Pearson have any direct flights to Buffalo? For instance, there are 20 daily flights between Seattle and Vancouver for a comparable distance. Also, I believe Air Canada had flights from Toronto to Rochester and Syracuse a few years back.
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Likely there is no demad for that flight. Note that seattle has a population of 750,000 (4 million in the metro area), while buffalos population is is 250,000 (1.2 million in the metro area). Seattle is also a major city and international entry point in the pacific north while buffalo is, not...
 
mjl08 said:
Quick question for flight nerds:

Why doesn't Pearson have any direct flights to Buffalo? For instance, there are 20 daily flights between Seattle and Vancouver for a comparable distance. Also, I believe Air Canada had flights from Toronto to Rochester and Syracuse a few years back.
Click to expand...

Seattle has Microsoft, Amazon, Expedia, etc...

Companies like this, based in Seattle, have major satellite operations in Vancouver which generate traffic between the two cities. There is nothing comparable between Buffalo and Toronto. Marine Midland Bank anyone? Oops - sorry, taken over by HSBC in 1999 and the former Buffalo headquarters got moved to New York City. The Marine Midland stadium is still in Buffalo though... But I do not think it generates much traffic between Buffalo and Toronto though...
 
mjl08 said:
Quick question for flight nerds:

Why doesn't Pearson have any direct flights to Buffalo? For instance, there are 20 daily flights between Seattle and Vancouver for a comparable distance. Also, I believe Air Canada had flights from Toronto to Rochester and Syracuse a few years back.
Click to expand...

I am not sure how competitive flying transborder (with all the security hassle) would be when driving takes only an hour on a good day - and even if it is, I'd think it'd be from the Island Airport on some dinky turboprop, not Pearson.

AoD
 
The nonstops to Buffalo died with Eastern Air Lines. They ran L1011s as a tag on to YYZ I believe right up until they failed in January of 1991.
 
Also, as the crow flies, I believe Buffalo is much closer to Toronto than Seattle is to Vancouver (229 km and not much different between modes). Whereas the drive to BUffalo is usually 90-120 minutes (170 km), whereas some Buffalo guys show up in my Grindr about 86 km away. So it would be a crazy short flight.

If it were to happen, I can see the impetus being more on the Buffalo side than ours (sort of like the Rochester ferry). I love Buffalo, but most Torontonians don't (or are misinformed at least).
 
JasonParis said:
Also, as the crow flies, I believe Buffalo is much closer to Toronto than Seattle is to Vancouver (229 km). The drive is usually 90-120 minutes (170 km), whereas some Buffalo guys show up in my Grindr about 86 km away. So it would be a crazy short flight.

If it were to happen, I can see the impetus being more on the Buffalo side than ours (sort of like the Rochester ferry). I love Buffalo, but most Torontonians don't (or are misinformed).
Click to expand...

More to the point, the whole reason the Rochester Ferry failed was because it was so close. You could see Rochester across the lake and it was not somewhere people really wanted to go.

I suspect the same factors are in play here. It would take an hour to an hour and a half to get through US pre-clearance at Pearson for a trip that is roughly the same length if not shorter than driving.

My point is, it does not make economical sense to have flights to Buffalo. It is like flying to Hamilton Airport or London, Ontario. You can do it but why?
 
It is interesting that, if current growth rate remains, some time next year Pearson will become the busiest North America airport by international traffic, overcoming Kennedy. Here is my little graph showing extrapolated projections, using 2015-2018 data:
Passngers.JPG
 
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