Hamilton International Airport

[LikeHamilton]

It looks like Kelowna Flightcraft has acquired their 3rd DC-10-30F yesterday. They have been using them on a Canada Post contract. Canada Post has moved most of their domestic cargo out of Toronto to Hamilton. These planes are based out of Hamilton.

[crhayes]

Originally Posted by bigguy1231

If they sell it to the GTAA, I am willing to bet that they would shut it down within 5 years and move everything to Pearson, then the new Pickering airport.

The city should not be selling assets.

This is just another stupid idea by the retards that run this city.

I agree that the airport is a good asset to have. They are talking about selling the airport to raise money for infrastructure, but the airport IS infrastructure.

They are also talking about expanding our transportation linkages (between airport, harbour, and highways) to create a key goods movement hub. I would think that this would increase the value of the airport lands significantly; why are they looking to sell now?

[realcity]

^ exactly... what happens when we sell off these public assets ? then in 5 years have the same problems? without any public assets to sell?

It's not a sustainable plan. Totally short-term for council to get re-elected.

[SteelTown]

How much would you pay to buy Hamilton airport?

January 13, 2010
The Hamilton Spectator
http://www.thespec.com/News/BreakingNews/article/704340

Councillor Chad Collins wants the city to consider selling John C. Munro Hamilton International Airport and investing the proceeds in aging infrastructure.

Collins has filed notice that he will introduce a motion within the next few weeks asking council to order a staff report on the airport’s value, potential buyers and how a sale might affect the lease under which Tradeport International operates the city-owned facility.

He planned to make the motion at a meeting Tuesday, but there wasn’t time.

Suggesting the airport be sold by 2012, Collins said: “Indications from staff last year were that we would have to spend $10- to $20 million to expand the airport in the next 10 to 15 years, but that is never spelled out in the agreement (with Tradeport). It’s not clear whether we have an obligation or not.

“Airports are not traditionally a municipal service, and we receive only $80,000 to $100,000 a year from Tradeport for use of our land and capital assets. If it were sold, we would still enjoy the benefits, would still control planning and still receive tax revenue from businesses operating there.

“Is there a market? I don’t know. What’s it worth? I don’t know. Those are things we would ask staff to investigate.”

Airport president and CEO Richard Koroscil was not immediately available for comment on the sale proposal.

[drpgq]

Ugh. I'm guessing right now isn't the best time to sell, even if selling was a good idea, which I don't think it is.

[realcity]

Tradeport only pays 80-100K a year to the City??????? What the hell goes on down at city hall? The Buddy-Buddy System.

[highwater]

Originally Posted by realcity

Tradeport only pays 80-100K a year to the City??????? What the hell goes on down at city hall? The Buddy-Buddy System.

It's pretty scandalous. I believe council has requested a report on Tradeport's deal with the city but is still waiting.

[SteelTown]

Mayor Says Airport Should Stay Under City Ownership

Ken Mann
1/14/2010
http://www.900chml.com/Channels/Reg/...spx?ID=1184861

Selling the airport is not an idea that sits well with Hamilton's mayor.

Fred Eisenberger says Munro International is a good strategic asset for the city, adding that selling it off would amount to "short-term gain for long-term loss".

He notes that their current lease agreement with airport operator Tradeport has gotten them out from under a "million dollar operating loss". 

Councillor Chad Collins plans to table a motion calling for an investigation into the sale of the airport when City Council meets later this month. 

He believes the sale would return tens of millions of dollars that could be used to address Hamilton's infrastructure deficit.

Eisenberger adds that he is in favour only of trying to improve the lease when the opportunity presents itself in 2012. 

He admits he'd like to see Tradeport "add a couple of dollars to its airport tax", to help the city raise the money to buy land for future expansion.

[SteelTown]

Airport sale would set precedent

January 15, 2010
Mark McNeil
The Hamilton Spectator
http://www.thespec.com/News/Local/article/705474

Selling Hamilton's international airport to private owners would be a Canadian aviation first.

Other than tiny airports that might host a few small planes and gliders, airports in Canada are either owned by the federal government or municipalities. They tend to have authorities that run them, but they are still owned by government.

Councillor Chad Collins says he is introducing a motion to consider selling John C. Munro Hamilton International Airport and investing the windfall into paying to fix aging city infrastructure. He says he wants to look at all ownership possibilities.

But airport president and CEO Richard Koroscil says an outright sale to private interests would be highly unusual. He says he knows of no other notable Canadian airport that is owned privately. A check at a Transport Canada site that lists Canadian airports and their owners did not turn up a private example.

Prior to 1994, all notable passenger airports were owned by Transport Canada. That year, the feds decided to give away airports with fewer than 200,000 passengers per year to the municipalities where they operated. Those with more than 200,000 passengers were kept by the feds.

Hamilton fell into that small airport category -- because it had far fewer than 200,000 passengers at the time -- which is why Hamilton ended up owning the airport in Mount Hope that was originally built in the 1940s as an air force training station.

Since 1994, and after Tradeport International took over managing the facility a couple of years later, the number of passengers has skyrocketed. It reached one million in 2002. Last year there were about 500,000 passengers.

Hamilton has the 15th-largest airport, by passenger size, and the only one owned by a municipality on that larger airport list.

Collins is asking that city staff look at all of the ramifications of selling the airport.

McMaster University business professor Marvin Ryder says privatizing Hamilton's airport would open up a pandora's box of problems. "I have a feeling the federal government won't allow selling an airport of that size to truly private people. You have to have air traffic control, NAV Canada approval, security. Who will make sure terrorists are not flying in and out?"

[SteelTown]

Oh yea forgot to report that council did last night.

Council approved to have staff look all options for the Airport. It's the same idea with the report whether to sell or keep HECFI. Nothing will happen until 2012 though but the report should be completed by 2011.

Also they'll look at trying to get the Airport to chip in with the cost of land acquisition from the Airport fee.

[SteelTown]

Council votes to probe sale of the airport

January 30, 2010
Emma Reilly
The Hamilton Spectator
http://www.thespec.com/News/Local/article/714885

The city may be one small step closer to selling the airport.

Council voted Wednesday night to investigate the ramifications of selling John C. Munro Hamilton International Airport, despite strong feelings from some council members who want to keep it in municipal hands.

The move came after Councillor Chad Collins introduced a motion to sell the airport by 2012 and use the proceeds to fund the city's infrastructure.

Council also voted to explore investing a portion of the airport's passenger tax into infrastructure instead of using the profits from a potential sale. And the city will look into the ramifications of continuing the airport's lease with Tradeport International, the airport's private operator. That lease has yet to be made public.

Collins said he understood the investigation will take some time and this issue will likely fall into the hands of the next council.

The city has owned the airport since 1994. Tradeport signed its 40-year lease with the city in 1996.

All large airports in Canada are either owned by the federal government or municipalities, which often have operators that run them, such as Tradeport.

Mayor Fred Eisenberger was among those against the idea of selling the airport. He argued it would be unwise to sell it given the current economic climate.

"This is probably exactly the wrong time to start considering it," Eisenberger said.

The mayor voted against asking for the report along with five other councillors: Lloyd Ferguson, David Mitchell, Robert Pasuta, Maria Pearson and Terry Whitehead.

But some were supportive of Collins' motion to investigate the airport's sale. Councillor Brian McHattie said it would allow council members to "look our taxpayers in the eye." Councillor Sam Merulla said selling the airport would save the money of Hamiltonians.

"We know that the taxpayers are getting screwed," he said. "(Tradeport) is rolling in millions and they're giving us crumbs."

Rob Rossini, the city's general manager of finance, told council the process of selling the airport would cost "several hundred thousand dollars."

"It will be probably somewhere between a quarter million to a half million to sell it," he said.

[urban_planner]

I think this would be another one of those bad decisions that council would make.

[Bureaucromancer]

Honestly I doubt the GTAA would shut it down, although they certainly wouldn't push it that hard. Their justification for Pickering really seems to be that while there are a number of western alternates to Pearson there are none to the east; they seem mostly interested in capturing traffic from Durham. Also keep in mind that they don't talk about accepting commercial traffic at Pickering any time in the near future (before 2030 comes to mind, but I'd have to check), the first phase of the airport is merely consolidating the general aviation facilities around the GTA (mostly Buttonville, Brampton and the Island).

My feeling is that if the GTAA got their hands on Hamilton they would defer Pickering a few more years and start really pushing to get the GA fields shut down (Buttonville already seems to be a done deal, but there's some talk of moving its operations to Markham Airport). The end result would be Hamilton becoming the commercial reliever and cargo airport with Pickering focusing much more on GA, although I could see someone like Bearskin operating something to Ottawa and Montreal in this Scenario to skim off demand from the eastern GTA.

[SteelTown]

Fewer flights put city airport in 35th place
But figures are 'deceiving,' exec says

March 17, 2010
Jenni Dunning
The Hamilton Spectator
http://www.thespec.com/News/Business/article/738736

Flights at the John C. Munro Hamilton International Airport have nosedived, landing it in 35th place among Canada's 41 largest airports.

The figures are revealed in a recently released Statistics Canada report.

But airport officials aren't worried, citing "deceiving" numbers.

Hamilton dropped to 42,000 flights in 2009 from 74,000 flights in 2005, when it was ranked 24th.

"We did see a sharp decline in local movements, (but) it's deceiving when you look at it that way," said Frank Scremin, the airport's director of operations.

He said there are two reasons for the decrease:

A Hamilton-based flight school moved to another city in late 2008, and cargo companies are using larger planes to carry product on fewer flights.

"Cargo is actually an extremely good news story for us for 2009," Scremin added.

Hamilton's airport improved 1 per cent in total cargo tonnage, compared to other airports that declined up to 27 per cent, he said.

In terms of flight numbers, nearby airports did better than Hamilton, including the Kitchener- Waterloo airport, falling off by only 2,151 flights.

The London airport went up about 1,000 flights from 2008 to 75,202.

The Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport, which has climbed 56 per cent in five years, increased to 54,323.

Pearson International has lost 21,538 flights since 2005.

StatsCan examined flights at 93 airports with Nav Canada flight service stations or towers.

[realcity]

London almost doubles us in flights. Triples us in hotel rooms. And has just over half our population. Maybe Eisenberger should forget Pittsburgh and just go 2 hours west of us to learn something.

[SteelTown]

The Airport opened up the new fuel station today. Cost about $8.5 million.

[SteelTown]

Airport partners pour $8m into jet fuel storage farm

April 09, 2010
Steve Arnold
The Hamilton Spectator
http://www.thespec.com/News/Business/article/750534

Backers of Hamilton's airport are taking another $8-million gamble on the field's potential.

This time, money has been poured into a new fuel farm on the south end of the airport property where two brand new tanks have sprouted to hold 3.6 million litres of jet fuel.

At the facility's official opening yesterday, airport president Richard Koroscil said the lack of such storage has been a problem, especially for the thriving cargo business Hamilton does at night.

"We've been put at a real disadvantage for years because we haven't had fuel capacity on site," Koroscil said.

"We're pumping as much or more fuel than airports like Winnipeg."

The system, which has been in service since January, is a joint project between the six airlines that regularly use Hamilton airport -- WestJet, Cargojet, Air Canada, Air Canada Jazz, UPS and Kelowna Flightcraft. They joined forces on the project to give themselves a sure source of fuel at better prices than they were paying when the only fuel at Hamilton was the half-day's supply kept by a private operator.

"This is basic economy for us," said Cargojet executive vice-president Jamie Porteous. "We use 20 million litres of fuel a year, and having assured access to that is very important to us."

With large storage tanks now at the airport, he said, the operators can buy fuel wherever they can get the best price and gain a competitive advantage.

"Now that we can buy our fuel at lower prices, we can pass that saving on to our customers," he said.

Koroscil says the real threat from the limited supply on-site was a road closure or strike or anything else that could keep the fuel trucks from getting to Mount Hope.

"Anything at all could have held us up," he said. "We're doing our best to play our role as a good partner here."

As it is currently structured, trucks will load up at the fuel tanks and move the gas to aircraft.

As air traffic through Hamilton picks up, Koroscil said, the system is ready to pump fuel directly to the tarmac.

The land purchased for the fuel farm -- it used to be a regular farm -- is big enough that at least two more tanks can be added as demand dictates.

[SteelTown]

London Airport is spending $6.5-million for expansion, which includes four jet bridges.

Rendering with the bridges.
http://swoa.freeforums.org/download/...=940&mode=view

Hamilton Airport seriously needs to improve the passenger side of the Airport instead of the Cargo side.

[bornagainbiking]

Vic's or Halifax airports are way better, even Winnipeg's for passengers.
We are what over 500,000 for Hamilton, not to mention Brantford and Caladonia. Victoria has a beautiful airport and about 20-30 mins out of town. See what they got and conpare.
The population of the City of Victoria was estimated to be 78,659 in 2006.[10] The Capital Regional District, comprising thirteen municipalities informally referred to as Greater Victoria, has a population of more than 330,000[11] and is the largest urban area on Vancouver Island.[12] By population, Greater Victoria is the 15th largest metropolitan area in Canada.
I flew out of Toronto recently and hated it, HI is nice and if it was marketed people would feel the difference and even the concept of parking.

[bigguy1231]

Originally Posted by SteelTown

London Airport is spending $6.5-million for expansion, which includes four jet bridges.

Rendering with the bridges.
http://swoa.freeforums.org/download/...=940&mode=view

Hamilton Airport seriously needs to improve the passenger side of the Airport instead of the Cargo side.

Thats been my opinion all along. Until they upgrade the terminal to something more than a bus terminal then they can forget about attracting anything other than secondary airlines.