Abridged from today's T&T
http://timestranscript.canadaeast.co...rticle/1429861
Porter happy to be in Moncton
Published Saturday August 6th, 2011
Airline has best-ever month in July and continues to perform well at Greater Moncton International Airport
by cole hobson
Times & Transcript Staff
Porter Airlines recorded its best-ever month in July and the company's partnership with the Greater Moncton International Airport played a big part in that success.
Porter announced a record-setting month of July in terms of passenger numbers, and interest in the airline continues to be high at the Moncton airport. The airline announced this week that its July numbers showed the all-time best load factor.
"We don't give out route-by-route figures for competitive reasons, but we have talked about Atlantic Canada as a whole in the past being one of our biggest areas in the entire network and that remains true this summer,"
Porter Airlines is Canada's third-largest scheduled carrier and is based at Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport. It has been offering its services at the Greater Moncton International Airport since June 2010 and currently features a twice-daily summer schedule of service to Ottawa and Toronto.
The company continues to be pleased with its decision to move into the Hub City.
Johanne Gallant, director of airport commercial development with the Greater Moncton International Airport, said business at the airport has been up all summer, both with Porter and on the whole.
Gallant said that just as the Metro Moncton area is doing well economically this summer by hosting various large concerts, festivals and events, the airport is also benefitting.
Aside from Porter's success, Gallant said Air Canada, West Jet and Continental are also seeing good summer numbers.
So what does the future hold for (Porter) in Moncton? Gallant said the airport is always interested in potentially expanding Porter's offerings in Moncton.
"I think what's happening now with the fact the loads are good from Moncton ... that certainly helps the business case. Then our job is to prove on new routes there is a potential for a certain load factor for them. They have that already, we've already pitched a few routes with them," she said. "For them, they acquire certain amounts of aircraft per year and decide where to allocate those aircraft, so for us we have to continue building our business case for these different routes and adding to existing routes."
Both Gallant and Cicero could not discuss what new routes or additions to service have or will be discussed, but it seems obvious that the future is bright for the airline in Moncton.
Personal note - One route that I would like to see Porter consider would be St. John's-Moncton-Toronto. There used to be a CanJet service between Moncton and St. John's that was fairly popular (I believe).