Record drop in flights
CATCH Aug 05, 2013
There was a record 15 percent drop in June in the number of flights between Hamilton and other airports, with an average of fourteen fewer arrivals and departures than in June of 2012. In a change from previous years, the private operator has stopped releasing its annual consolidated financial statements public, and these are even no longer available to city councillors.
The 15 percent decline in itinerant flights (between airports as opposed to strictly local flights) pushed Hamilton to thirty-seventh position among the 42 airports across the country which have NAV Canada flight control towers. That was also Hamilton’s rank in May when it registered a 12 percent drop in itinerant flights versus the previous May. This is the first time since at least 2000 that the Mt Hope facility has been ranked this low two months in a row.
The June flight total of 2440 was down 435 from last year and nearly 50 percent below what was achieved just three years ago when there were 3621 itinerant flights in June 2010. The May and June declines this year came despite the late April addition of WestJet’s summer daily flights to Winnipeg, Edmonton, Halifax and Moncton to the year-round Calgary service.
The airport’s ranking for total flights (including local ones) stood at 40th in June – the first time it has fallen that low for three consecutive months. It hit 41st in one month of 2011 and 40th in two separate months last year, but otherwise had not fallen below 39th position.
In contrast the Kitchener-Waterloo airport had 4700 itinerant flights in June – nearly twice the Hamilton amount – which represented a small increase over the June 2012 figures. London airport reported 3617 itinerant flights in June, a 12 percent decline from the previous June.
Tradeport International, the private corporation that holds a 40-year lease on Hamilton’s airport, recently announced that new destinations to Mexico and Jamaica will be offered next winter, but the company has not released any public comment on the flight declines reported in the monthly bulletins of Transport Canada.
Its most recent public update to city council was provided in June and reported a 5.7 percent increase in passenger volume last year, and a 7.4 percent decline in “cargo billable weight”. The latter number fell just under 400,000 tonnes but is difficult to evaluate because it combines the weight of the airplane as well as its cargo load.
That update provided some financial highlights showing an increase in revenues and a drop in expenses in 2012, but is much less detailed than the audited statements previously made public. Those have been removed from the airport website, and Tradeport has also abandoned its earlier practice of holding a June public information meeting.
Michael Desnoyers, the chair of Hamiltonians for Progressive Development (HPD), has been unsuccessful in his efforts to obtain the company’s consolidated financial statements, even coming up empty when he asked the assistance of his city councillor, Lloyd Ferguson.
The Ancaster councillor replied: “I am told I do not have access to them, just the KPMG report that confirms they are complying with the terms of the lease [with the city]”. He suggested Desnoyers attempt a Freedom of Information request.
Desnoyers was not impressed that elected representatives are also in the dark about airport financials.
“There is no denying that Tradeport is a private company but they are managing a city-owned asset which is arguably worth over $400 million dollars and it is your understanding that council and the public has NO direct access to the financial performance of the managing company,” he wrote to Ferguson. “In addition to that, Tradeport released these documents publicly for the past 5 years and now suddenly they have become classified.”