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  #1261  
Old Posted Jun 17, 2013, 6:01 PM
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The government is so committed to air travel that it's thinking ahead to 2027, but it won't commit to rail transit that's already 30 years overdue. Think of how much capacity would be available at the existing airport if high speed rail linked Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa. HSR also complements airports by connecting with them, reducing the overall travel time for longer flights. Weren't the Feds supposed to by studying this? (again)
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  #1262  
Old Posted Jun 17, 2013, 7:10 PM
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The latest of many feasibility studies was released in late 2011- it found that it would be even more expensive to develop the system than when the possibility was last studied.

The report found that Quebec City-Windsor would not have a net positive benefit, but that Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal definitely would.

From an environmental perspective, replacing any proportion of short-haul and commuter flights with rail makes a big difference.
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  #1263  
Old Posted Jun 17, 2013, 9:43 PM
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Region approves $400,000 subsidy for American Eagle

"WATERLOO REGION — The local airport will celebrate one year with American Eagle by providing the airline with $400,000 to compensate it for empty seats.

Regional council agreed to the subsidy to lure the airline to the Region of Waterloo International Airport. American flies to and from Chicago."

Link

I thought you all might be interested in this, since I've occasionaly heard Waterloo International Airport mentioned as a possible future relief airport for Pearson. $150,000 is from local businesses who want the connection to Chicago, and the subsidies could be as high as $1.4 million if certain sale thresholds are not reached (it doesn't say what those thresholds are).

This seems like a lot of money to me…does John C Munro do anything similar for any of its carriers, or has it in the past? It doesn't seem like the most sensible way of doing things…it could disincentivize the airline from being well-priced and attracting as many passengers as possible.
That's interesting. I've never heard of Hamilton's airport doing that. I assume the main business contributing would be RIM, as a direct connection from Chicago to Waterloo would be really useful for them. KW also has Bearskin servicing Ottawa which would be nice for Hamilton to have.

I'm still hoping that with Westjet getting Turboprops that opens up Hamilton to Ottawa and Montreal.
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  #1264  
Old Posted Jun 18, 2013, 12:41 PM
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I've heard in the past that Bearskin's Ottawa service has done well. KW has a few recently-opened federal government operations (such as FedDev'shead office) that may create demand for it.

It would be really great to see a WestJet Hamilton-Ottawa service.

I'm not sure to what extent municipal governments should subsidize air routes that will be used by a small minority of people. But it's very interesting to me that local businesses would contribute, and I can understand why having some routes to a few American cities would be a great thing. I really wonder if U.S. Steel/Stelco could ever be convinced to join with a few others to help entice American Airlines or someone similar to try a Hamilton-Pittsburgh route, or if it might be possible to do the same for Hamilton-Boston or Hamilton-Philadelphia.
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  #1265  
Old Posted Jul 2, 2013, 8:50 PM
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New Service for Winter Season at Hamilton International Airport

Hamilton International welcomes Sunwing Vacations and launches new service to Jamaica through Transat

Hamilton, Ont. – (July 2, 2013)

John C. Munro Hamilton International Airport is pleased to announce the start of non-stop weekly service to Montego Bay, Jamaica through Transat Holidays and Nolitours, as well as the introduction of Sunwing Vacations to Hamilton International with service to Varadero, for the 2013/2014 winter season.

Service to Montego Bay will begin December 22, 2013 and run through to April 13, 2014. All-inclusive vacation packages will be available through Transat Holidays and Nolitours.

Sunwing all-inclusive packaged vacations to Varadero will begin December 18, 2013 to continue through to March 26, 2014.

“We are excited to grow our partnership with Transat through the introduction of service to Montego Bay and welcome Sunwing service to Hamilton International Airport,” said Lauren Yaksich, Manager, Marketing and Communications, John C. Munro Hamilton International Airport. “These offerings add value by expanding destinations available and increasing frequency to an already popular sun destination.”

Transat and Nolitours will also offer non-stop weekly service to Cancun, Punta Cana, Varadero and Cayo Santa Maria, Cuba from December 2013 to April 2014.

Beginning in November, WestJet will offer weekly service to Cancun, Punta Cana and Orlando for the 2013/2014 winter season. Year-round daily flights to Calgary will continue through WestJet, as well as weekly service to Kapuskasing, Ont. every Thursday with Bearskin Airlines.

Flights can be booked on-line or through your local travel representative. Please confirm flight dates and times with the airline prior to departure.
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  #1266  
Old Posted Jul 18, 2013, 12:46 PM
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I just read a good question over at Wonderful Waterloo, a forum much like this one for folks in the Waterloo Region. They have a parallel thread to this over there- "Region of Waterloo International Airport"- and have a good discussion going on right now coming up on the airport's Master Plan. The GM of the airport is participating, it's a fairly interesting chat.

The question someone asked that I thought people here might be able to answer for me is:

"My question would be seeing as Pearson is such a despised airport, why has the Hamilton airport not already gobbled up a larger share of business? People (myself included) drive to Buffalo to avoid Pearson. Why hasn't Hamilton generated any real success? It seems they were destined to be Pearson #2 for the Golden Horseshoe."

I don't know the answer to this. I flew out of Munro a couple of times several years ago as a Londoner- once to Ottawa, which was until recently one of the only domestic flights I ever needed to take, as I prefer rail and car; and once to Stansted with flyglobespan- and thought that it was an infinitely more civilized way to fly than Pearson. I can honestly say that, if flyglobespan had continued, I would have taken it the next year from Hamilton, and transferred to my final destination in London, England, just to avoid Pearson.

Why has Hamilton not been more successful?
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  #1267  
Old Posted Jul 18, 2013, 1:19 PM
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I vaguely remember a college teacher once telling the class that while Airports were federal, getting a highway connection to them was a provincial matter and the province decided there were other priorities, leaving the airport a bit stranded. There may be more to his argument but I can't remember. Maybe someone else can expand or debunk.
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  #1268  
Old Posted Jul 18, 2013, 1:30 PM
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There's the new Highway 6 South off the 403 to the Airport. The highway got funded and opened while Brad Clark was Transport Minister.

Whenever I take a taxi to the Airport they all take Highway 6.
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  #1269  
Old Posted Jul 18, 2013, 7:06 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by HillStreetBlues View Post
I just read a good question over at Wonderful Waterloo, a forum much like this one for folks in the Waterloo Region. They have a parallel thread to this over there- "Region of Waterloo International Airport"- and have a good discussion going on right now coming up on the airport's Master Plan. The GM of the airport is participating, it's a fairly interesting chat.

The question someone asked that I thought people here might be able to answer for me is:

"My question would be seeing as Pearson is such a despised airport, why has the Hamilton airport not already gobbled up a larger share of business? People (myself included) drive to Buffalo to avoid Pearson. Why hasn't Hamilton generated any real success? It seems they were destined to be Pearson #2 for the Golden Horseshoe."

I don't know the answer to this. I flew out of Munro a couple of times several years ago as a Londoner- once to Ottawa, which was until recently one of the only domestic flights I ever needed to take, as I prefer rail and car; and once to Stansted with flyglobespan- and thought that it was an infinitely more civilized way to fly than Pearson. I can honestly say that, if flyglobespan had continued, I would have taken it the next year from Hamilton, and transferred to my final destination in London, England, just to avoid Pearson.

Why has Hamilton not been more successful?
I think the access argument was one reason before the new alignment of Hwy 6 was built.

But the main thing in my opinion has been service. When airlines have provided consistent and frequent service, the passenger traffic has been relatively good (over 1M passengers with WestJet prior to moving their hub to Pearson, and a good run with Greyhound Air back in the mid-90s but they only lasted a year before going under).

Today WestJet provides fairly light service, especially during the winter months. And you have vacation charters and niche services like Bearskin's connection to Kapuskasing and FlyGlobeSpan before it went bankrupt.

But with Pearson relatively close, until airlines have real problems meeting demand (or the costs of doing so become prohibitive) they will not want to duplicate services in Hamilton.

Also, the terminal is a bit awkward - big enough in some ways, but easily overwhelmed if too many flights have to be handled at once. It also lacks amenities travelers have come to expect, like bridged gates. There's a perception that it's rinky-dink, because it's not fancy (there were big plans to expand it when WestJet still had its hub here; personally, if they need to go bigger I think they're probably better off starting from scratch with a new building)

Hamilton's short term prospects might be better served by a regional service... I have hopes WestJet will use the airport for its turboprop Encore subsidiary, though I believe they're looking at trying to get into Toronto's Billy Bishop.
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  #1270  
Old Posted Jul 31, 2013, 12:58 PM
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Green Smoothie Bar opens a second location at Hamilton Airport.
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  #1271  
Old Posted Jul 31, 2013, 8:02 PM
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I can't imagine that being a sound business decision, but I wish them the best of luck.
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  #1272  
Old Posted Aug 2, 2013, 3:18 PM
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I can't imagine that being a sound business decision, but I wish them the best of luck.
Exactly.
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  #1273  
Old Posted Aug 2, 2013, 8:22 PM
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Exactly.
Well if they gave them a deal on rent, then it is just basically the smoothie machines and a minimum wage worker plus I would assume a little bit of money for some type of stand. Might be hard in the winter though.
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  #1274  
Old Posted Aug 7, 2013, 12:37 AM
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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.”
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  #1275  
Old Posted Aug 10, 2013, 1:00 AM
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I think there's some funny business happening at the airport or incompetence, at the very least. Not only can we not compete with YYZ - on any level - but we're losing out to regional airports in KW and London. That's poor and it's been going on for years.

Tradeport has failed - nobody can argue against that. It's time for an investigation into the management of YHM.
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  #1276  
Old Posted Aug 13, 2013, 4:33 PM
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Is Hamilton getting enough out of its airport?
Councillor wants city to have another look at its lease with TradePort
CBC News
By Julia Chapman

Disappointing revenue and too few passenger flights have a Hamilton councillor seeking a review of the city's lease with the company that operates the John C. Munro Hamilton International Airport .

Ward 5 councillor Chad Collins proposes striking the committee in advance of 2016. That year will be the first of three times that the city will review the 40-year lease signed in 1996 with TradePort, the sole operator and manager of the airport, he said.

“I've been very critical of the lease we have now, and it was certainly celebrated as being a big win for the city for benefits,” Collins told the city's general issues committee Monday after councillors heard an annual report from TradePort. “I think a lot of issues have been exposed publicly over the last 10 years.”

The subcommittee would examine some of the “shortfalls” of the current lease, he said, and spell out who — the city or TradePort — is responsible for the airport “from a financial perspective, from a regulatory standpoint, to everything along those lines.” The subcommittee could put "some meat on the bones" of the contract, he said.

City council was faced with a choice in the 1990s to choose a passenger operator or a hybrid passenger/cargo operator, he said. The city went with the latter, and selected TradePort.

“It was probably a year-long process to iron out exactly how the airport would be operated, (and) what investments they would make over a 40-year period,” Collins told CBC Hamilton. “By the time the documents were signed and approved, what we ended up with looked a lot different that what was reported in the initial contract.”

Collins said he expected more passenger traffic through the airport and stability with airline operators opposed to a “revolving door” the airport has now. The city also expected more from a “revenue sharing perspective,” he said.

“We're receiving on average maybe $100,000 a year and we expected a lot more than that when we first signed the deal,” he said.

The biggest outstanding issue, Collins said, is an extension of the shorter of the two runways. That was supposed to happen within the first 20 years of TradePort's lease.

“We're getting pretty close to that 20 year and we haven't seen anything in terms of plan or design to indicate that investment is on the horizon,” he said.

The subcommittee could set timelines for those improvements, he said, and consult with Hamiltonians on what they want to see from the airport.

“It seems like every year or two years, a new issue comes up at the airport,” he said. “We need to clearly put language in the contract that states who is responsible.”

The airport's website states TradePort has invested $77.9 million to the city of Hamilton between 1996 and 2012.

It calculates the net benefit of the privatization at more than $200 million.

Collins hopes to present a firm proposal in September.

CEO Frank Scremin presented the annual report Monday. The airport paid the city $290,000 in 2012, it said. That's what was left from the $14.6 million revenue after $11.7 million in expenses and pocketing $2.9 million in net income.

TradePort's rent to the city has actually increased by 71 per cent between 2011 to 2012 he said.

Scremin's report said only 351,491 passengers used the airport in 2012. That number was better that passengers in 2011 by 5 per cent, but cargo weight carried in and out of the airport decreased by 7 per cent.
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  #1277  
Old Posted Aug 13, 2013, 11:39 PM
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If Tradeport were simply using YHM to line their own pockets, then you'd think there'd be more incentive to increase passenger numbers. So it's incompetence then, I suppose.
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  #1278  
Old Posted Aug 14, 2013, 6:13 AM
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Originally Posted by lucasmascotto View Post
City council was faced with a choice in the 1990s to choose a passenger operator or a hybrid passenger/cargo operator, he said. The city went with the latter, and selected TradePort.
I don't recall that choice. Anyone remember who the other potential operator(s) could have been?

Re: the 06/24 runway extension - it has been a long time coming, but didn't the city recently purchase land to provide room for that?

TradePort has definitely under-delivered on over-promises.
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  #1279  
Old Posted Sep 20, 2013, 10:55 AM
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Something's gotta give!

Like many people I talk to I avoid Pearson as much as possible. But the occasional trip to remind me. One of the best ideas is the stopping or cell phone lot or the wide shoulders on the outskirts for a quick text to swoop in and grab your prey.
There is plenty of talk about the advantages and comparison of Buffalo (doing real well) vs Hamilton. There will be very little movement on price as our regulations, tariffs and service charges add up to price us out of the running.
So we need innovation. Sadly to say and not sure why but we lose ground at an alarming rate. Big empty parking lot, no restaurant (converted to offices for more staff of a dying or under performing venture), a couple times a day operational hour(s).
We need flights in and out here. I like the concept of Toronto Island and apparently so have others. New tunnel, new approach on land side (taxis galore and absolute chaos during flight arrivals) extend the runway. Very little parking but a fragmented and free shuttle from Union Station via Royal York to airport courtesy Porter. Cute little open concept bus.
There are plenty locals that work in Alberta and it shows with the daily flights to Calgary. Year round. West Jet service to the East in the summer. But minimal useage otherwise.
Last week I was out to the airport and I saw that Big under-utilized parking lot.
Why not portion off the top third and offer free up to two week parking. Put up a couple of bus shelters with phones and increase the security staff with golf carts to ferry people to and fro. Set up a stopping area for people to wait for a text to drive around. Use the Warplane Heritage Museum lot in the off hours.
Pearson has a lot where limo drivers wait free or family. The rule is you can not leave your vehicle unattended, just provide a porta potty or 2 out there. And include proper signage well in advance. If it is popular leave some room for a food truck or two to drive in.
The parking lot is empty at that end. Encourage staff to park there free. This acts as an informal eyes and ears deterrent as well as human presence. Taxis are great but they are like seagulls. They come and then leave for other jobs. At midnight the place is hopping and by 1 poof ghost town.
It is just sad to see an empty terminal while only 45 mins away we have
2 that are both expanding and a threat of a new airport in Pickering.
The competition seems to be doing well and why can't we. Maybe because we don't want to! Need to trim the fat out there of an under performing management. Same story everywhere. HI should get hungry and get nasty for the business. Undercut everyone. Partner up with a reduced rate on rentals. A lot faster to deplane here than PIA.
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  #1280  
Old Posted Nov 15, 2013, 8:43 PM
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WestJet will be offering its first transatlantic service this summer - daily flights to Dublin for the summer season starting June 15, 2014.

Quote:
New flights to the old country

The Emerald Isle is closer than you might think. Starting June 15, 2014* WestJet will be offering our first transatlantic service from St. John's, Newfoundland to Dublin, Ireland, with connecting service from several other Canadian destinations.

Did you know that St. John's is closer to Dublin than Calgary? And once you get there, Dublin Airport provides more than 100 non-stop flights to other European destinations. Whether it is your final destination or a jumping off point to Europe and beyond, WestJet is happy to help you get across the pond.

Schedule highlights:


St. John's - Dublin Daily June 15, 2014 to October 5, 2014

Toronto (direct same plane) - Dublin** Daily June 15, 2014 to
October 5, 2014

Calgary, Edmonton, Halifax, Hamilton, Kelowna, Montreal, Ottawa, Thunder Bay, Vancouver, Victoria, Winnipeg - Dublin** Daily June 15, 2014 to
October 5, 2014

Book by December 4, 2013 (11:59 p.m. MT), for travel from June 15 to October 5, 2014.*
http://www.westjet.com/guest/en/deal...eland-20131115
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