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Old Posted Jun 3, 2009, 6:09 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by twoNeurons View Post
I don't see it as diverting traffic to the Valley. I see it as an option to traveling out of YVR. From Surrey, YXX is about the same distance from YVR and YXX, depending on where in Surrey you are. The difference is that once you hit the #1, you can be at YXX in 25 minutes.

I can definitely see flights to India from Abbotsford. With the growing Korean population one to Seoul, too.

I'm not a fan of the HUB system. If I'm going to Disneyland, I don't want to go to LAX, I want to go to Ontario Airport.

If I'm going to Edinburgh, I don't want to have to fly to Glasgow. Airports with smaller planes and full flights serving people where people live.

I see a few possibilities for YXX:
Low cost airlines (similar to Bellingham and Allegiant)
Seasonal Charters (Hawaii, Europe)
A few select Special Destinations (India, Korea)

I don't see why we have to grow YVR for the sake of growing it. I'm fine with it growing slower while Abbotsford takes on more flights.

Also, the Mirabel comment make no sense.

Mirabel airport was supposed to be the MAIN airport, not a secondary one. Dorval was planned to be closed down. Mirabel also didn't serve any population. It was supposed to serve Montreal. YXX serves local population (realistically, those south of the Fraser River) as well as serving as a possible secondary airport for Metro Vancouver. It's nothing like Mirabel.
I don't think that anyone (well, other than zahav ) is advocating deliberately obstructing YXX's growth in order to have a higher growth rate for YVR. Some people here (i.e. RustyGull) appear to be skeptical about YXX's growth (although I would tend to disagree, I wouldn't be surprised if at least some of the possibilities you outlined came to be within the next 10 years or so), but I don't think that serves to imply they deliberately want to force YXX to not grow.

When you think about it, it's not terribly surprising YXX with have a higher growth rate that YVR. The number of passengers YXX is starting with is so low compared to YVR that it's almost impossible for it to not grow faster. Consider that it's supposed to grow to 4 times it's current size in 25 years. To keep up, YVR would have to be serving about 80 million passengers a year, making it one of the biggest airports in the world, which is obviously not going to happen. Even if YVR stole 2/3 of YXX's projected growth (i.e. a million passengers), YXX's growth rate would probably still be higher. Again, I'm not advocating this, but just showing how a low starting point can tend to skew growth rates to look like they mean more than they really do.


As for the Mirabel comment, you're overanalyzing it. What was meant that I think YXX should grow as it needs to (i.e. market demands), but we shouldn't articifially force growth (as was done with Mirabel through their international landings policy) simply because we want to make Abby a transportation "hub", due to the high percentile growth of the three-cities-as-one that he mentioned.
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