Quote:
Originally Posted by NB_ExistsToo
Oh yes, the CEO of a major airline suggests an idea that costs billions of tax payers dollars and only make his company more money, I wonder why he would suggest such a thing? I am shocked!
Say we went all in with YQM, 10 years from now he'd be saying the same thing about YQM and YHZ, no point in having two major airports that have 1/10 of YYZ traffic so close together.
From my understanding, the federal government invests significantly more amount than the province, so why would the province handicap two of its major cities by closing their airports, which does help each city grow. Could you imagine this decision was made in the 80's when Saint John was the major city so it likely would have been the major airport, and you likely wouldn't be seeing Moncton growing like it is today.
Either way, there's only about 1M passengers/year currently through the 3 airports. With 1, we would likely just predominately go through Montreal/Toronto for any significant destinations, or would need to drive to Halifax. If you don't believe me, look at Abbotsford International Airport departure/arrival page, which reportedly has 1.3M passengers annually: Calgary, Calgary, Edmonton, Edmonton, Toronto Repeat.... At least now half of us would have longer drives while all of us will have the pleasure of longer security checks and a bigger waiting room, I'm just dying with excitement!
We're just too small of a population base to think our "major" airport would suddenly be supporting all these wonderful destinations at discount pricing.
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More money for his company would mean more flights in and out of New Brunswick. It's a rare case of where what's good for the airline, is good for the people of NB. More flights and more traffic is what we need.
If current population growth trends continue, along with urbanization rates, 75% of New Brunswickers will live in the metro areas of Saint John, Fredericton, and Moncton one day. Already, we're getting closer to 500,000 people living within or adjacent to the metro areas of the 3 "big cities".
Abbotsford is not even an hour from the Vancouver Airport, and Abbotsford still has considerably cheaper flights than YSJ and YFC. Saint John and Fredericton have a combined metro population of over 250,000, and would pull upon an over 350,000 people. There's far more people in the combined metro areas of Saint John and Fredericton than Greater Moncton. Shutting down YSJ and YFC , and have YQM be the only airport for the three major cities of NB would be a
horrible idea.
The goal could be to have two airports that with a traffic of over 1 million each. Halifax is on pace for 4 million passengers in the not too distant future, with a Metro population that is basically half that of Winnipeg. It's reasonable for NB (with a population close to that of Metro Winnipeg) to aim for two airports with 1 million or more each. Saskatchewan has no problem with that goal across their two main airports, but is not not a desirable tourist destination like New Brunswick.
South of the border of Saskatchewan is gophers, but south of the New Brunswick border 57,000,000 people in the Northeastern United States. Getting some direct flights to New York, Boston, or other cities would not be out of the question.
I don't think New Brunswick is "too small a population", not when you compare it to other Canadian airports and the populations they serve. We punch well above our weight in terms of tourism, and we are strategically located close to huge US population centres. There's even the possibility of shared flights that originate in St. John's, NFLD or Halifax that pick up passengers in Moncton or SJ/Freddy on the way to destinations like Boston, New York, etc.
None of this would happen suddenly. We need big ideas and better plans for the future, and not be so quick to write our province off as "too small", etc. Better is always possible. It's an idea at the very least that deserves some economic study. I'm not sure Saint John and Fredericton can ever reach 1 million combined passengers between two airports, but that's exactly the type of thing that government should study and find out.
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