[coalminecanary]

Mark, I never said Florida was domestic so I'm not sure what you are getting at.

If any companies move into the aerotropolis then cargo tonnage will likely increase. But that is a big if with a huge price which must be paid before we'll ever know if the businesses will come (my money says they won't).

The slight possibility of an increase in cargo traffic is likely the main reason for Richard Koroscil's unending fight for the aerotropolis. He is managing a dying airport and needs to do whatever he can to improve his numbers. It's no skin off his back if he can successfully leverage half a billion taxpayer dollars to help him succeed, even if the success is marginal.

Cargo tonnage has increased over the years but YHM's rank within Canadian airports has stagnated (they have actually slipped recently if I am reading the numbers correctly), so does that mean that the tonnage increases actually represent an increase across the board nationally? Does it have anything to do with YHM or is it just that more stuff is getting shipped in and out of every airport?

{Unfortunately statscan's numbers for airport tonnage are totally out of whack so it's hard to tell. Each year the report lists different numbers for past years, so it's hard to determine which is accurate. It's almost as if they changed the units without telling anyone.}

Regarding passenger flights, I think it is completely inappropriate to blame people (not sure who you are accusing here anyway - citizens of Hamilton? readers of this board? oakvillians? brantfordians?) for not buying enough tickets out of Hamilton.

I am sure I am not alone in that I personally search YHM first whenever I am looking for a flight (which is admittedly infrequent). Unfortunately it is rare to actually find a flight that gets you where you need to be. I am sure there is a tipping point where you have to have a certain number of flights and destinations before your airport is taken seriously, and after that the selection just gets bigger and bigger. Unfortunately reaching that point is a bit of a catch 22.

Regardless, all the hoping in the world is not going to make YHM successful. Unless any of us believes that fuel prices will fall (I think most of us understand they will be continually rising), passenger flights are going to become less common and airlines are going to have to tighten belts and reduce the number of destinations they serve. Will YHM ever be taken seriously alongside YYZ?

My prediction is that passenger service at YHM will continue to dwindle and our cargo tonnage will change only to match the change in tonnage that all Canadian airports see nationwide (i.e. YHM maintains their current rank, in the neighbourhood of 6th-9th place for cargo).

I predict that aerotropolis (if built, but hopefully it isn't) will sit mostly empty (except for one or two businesses which will be hailed as proof of aerotropolis success) just long enough to make Hamilton sweat a bit, at which point the homebuilders (who own a bunch of the land already) will swoop in and offer to "save" Hamilton by utilizing all of this freshly serviced land which has failed to generate tax income.

We need to hunker down and fix our core. We need to become a real city once again. THEN we can focus on our airport. We need to give people a reason to fly in and out of here. A few flights to Cuba aren't going to do it. A few flights to London aren't either. And most of all, spending a half billion on servicing industrial lands up there is not going to help in any way at all. Until we fix the city, anything we do at the airport is simply surface treatment.