Ottawa Macdonald-Cartier International Airport (YOW/CYOW)

[eemy]

Originally Posted by O-Town Hockey

I personally don't know what all the stink is about direct international flights. All we need is to up our frequency to the massive hub that is Pearson and one can be connected to any city in the world.

Flights such as YOW-FRA do that far more effectively than upgrading YOW-YYZ, which is already served very well (the third busiest city pair in Canada). By focusing on service to Pearson, Ottawa is limited to destinations served out of Toronto, or else the person requires at least two connections, which greatly increases the flight time. By connecting to important hubs like Frankfurt, and in the future, CDG or AMS, the connections increase substantially.

[FFX-ME]

All right, the new transit priorities that have been approved for ottawa with the subway and lrt have a link to the airport. I dont know why everyone thought that was so important though, who takes city transit to an airport, i mean with all the luggage its inconvenient

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/pdf/LRT_Network.pdf

[eemy]

Out of curiousity, does anyone have any updates on the new wing and the Hilton?

[Mille Sabords]

Originally Posted by FFX-ME

All right, the new transit priorities that have been approved for ottawa with the subway and lrt have a link to the airport. I dont know why everyone thought that was so important though, who takes city transit to an airport, i mean with all the luggage its inconvenient

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/pdf/LRT_Network.pdf

Huh? Depends how much luggage. I used to make business trips to Toronto and fly into Island Airport with just my briefcase, jump on the ferry, then the shuttle to Union, hop on the subway and that's it. I think there's a lot of value from having an LRT link to the airport. It's not all fat American tousists with straw hats, cameras on their fat bellies and 15 pieces of luggage on wheels, looking for "the mawll"...

[citizen j]

Indeed. When the choices are a train ride for under $3 or a taxi ride for over $30 (or $40, or $50... depending on the city), I choose the train.

[Jamaican-Phoenix]

Originally Posted by FFX-ME

All right, the new transit priorities that have been approved for ottawa with the subway and lrt have a link to the airport. I dont know why everyone thought that was so important though, who takes city transit to an airport, i mean with all the luggage its inconvenient

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/pdf/LRT_Network.pdf

Interestingly enough, pretty much every major city on Earth has an LRT connection to its respective airport and many people use it...

[bikegypsy]

The train to and from an airport is always my number one choice... always...
Trains always have plenty of space for luggage and all. Regular city buses are a pain though.

[eemy]

The airport's website has a pdf on their website of the panels from the Master Planning open house.

It looks like they'll be needing to proceed with some further expansion in the short term. I suspect the first thing will be to expand the main part of the terminal over that parking area to the west so that they'll have further baggage handling space. Beyond that, it looks like they have plans for a hotel adjacent to the terminal on the opposite side where the expansion is currently taking place, and eventually expanding the gate capacity (over a ten year horizon) by either expanding westward on the existing building or constructing a satellite concourse that would be accessible by tunnel. The Canada Reception Centre looks like it will be located between the two FBOs, and possibly attached to the one closer to the terminal (I can't remember if that was the Shell or Esso one). In any case, it sounds like there will be some fairly steady construction taking place over the next twenty years or so.

[FFX-ME]

Nice, so which option do u guys prefer, personnaly i prefer option 1, we dont need a separate internationnals terminal

[AuxTown]

Originally Posted by FFX-ME

All right, the new transit priorities that have been approved for ottawa with the subway and lrt have a link to the airport. I dont know why everyone thought that was so important though, who takes city transit to an airport, i mean with all the luggage its inconvenient

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/pdf/LRT_Network.pdf

How recent is this plan? It's not going to south Orleans like the most recent plan I have seen in the news. Let's get this going and I think a link to the airport makes an important statement about the direction that Ottawa is going, forward.

[eemy]

Originally Posted by FFX-ME

Nice, so which option do u guys prefer, personnaly i prefer option 1, we dont need a separate internationnals terminal

I suspect that Option 1D or 1E will be the one that is eventually chosen simply because of the fact that it doesn't appear that any of the other options really address the criteria set out in the panels. Of particular concern in that respect is the ability to maintain operations even in the event of receiving a significant diversion of Code E or F aircraft (like 747s or A380s). Most of the other options would require the aircraft taking more than one gate position whereas Option 1D or E provide several positions that could accommodate those planes. That is also an important factor since they expect that the movements will increase at less than a third the rate of passengers, meaning that the increase will mainly be accommodated by larger aircraft. Air Canada's new fleet of wide-body aircraft are all designated Code E, and it's not unreasonable to assume that Ottawa will receive regularly scheduled Code E aircraft in the future. If that is the case, they had better make sure that they have the gate space to handle them, otherwise the capacity of the terminal will suffer.

[FFX-ME]

Originally Posted by O-Town Hockey

How recent is this plan? It's not going to south Orleans like the most recent plan I have seen in the news. Let's get this going and I think a link to the airport makes an important statement about the direction that Ottawa is going, forward.

It is the 2Billion dollar transit priorities, it was in the citizen on november 29. It is an accepted plan that is already looking for funding, i dunno what plan you saw.

[YOWflier]

Originally Posted by jeremy_haak

Out of curiousity, does anyone have any updates on the new wing (...)

Perhaps you didn't see the construction update which was taken directly from the airport employee newsletter. It's on the previous page.

Originally Posted by Jamaican-Phoenix

Interestingly enough, pretty much every major city on Earth has an LRT connection to its respective airport

Except Toronto, a sore spot for many there. Rapid rail transit between a city's center and its airport is hugely important and valuable.

Do it now, even if it isn't immediately needed, because we all know how 'adding it later' usually works. Once again, just ask Toronto how much fun they've had trying to bring rail/subway out to Pearson.

Originally Posted by jeremy_haak

The airport's website has a pdf on their website of the panels from the Master Planning open house.

I wanted to attend this open house but couldn't get away from work on time.

Anyway, I think options 1D and 1E are the best because they provide the most code E aircraft positions. Aircraft like the Boeing 787 and Airbus A350 are being developed to serve markets like Ottawa and are being sold in droves. They have been classified as code E aircraft (at least the 787-8 and 787-9 have and I'm assuming the A350 will be too) so I think it's important to easily accomodate this class of aircraft so as the not stifle our international growth capability.

Option 2A is 'neat' because it provides a second terminal (probably transborder), but I see no real need for this unless the main terminal building runs out of check-in, baggage, and security space. But then again, what about the code E aircraft?

Single (or fewer) terminal airports are much easier to navigate and make flight connections a lot easier. Passengers prefer simpler designs like what we have and what options 1D and 1E maintain.

[BlackRedGold]

Originally Posted by ac888yow

Except Toronto, a sore spot for many there.

Does ANY Canadian city currently have an operating light rail line from it's airport?

[citizen j]

Vancouver's building one. The Canada Line. Not sure when it opens.

[harls]

^ I'd wager it'll open before the 2010 olympics, for sure.

[FFX-ME]

doent montreal have a connection to the airport, theres the dorval station of the metro

[citizen j]

That's on the AMT (trains de banlieue) commuter heavy rail line out to the West Island, Dorion and Rigaud. Like the GO train. Not frequent intracity service.

http://www.stm.info/english/info/trains2006.pdf

[Aylmer]

Ottawa should be the next city...

[YOWflier]

Originally Posted by BlackRedGold

Does ANY Canadian city currently have an operating light rail line from it's airport?

I don't think so. It's especially sad in Toronto's case considering Pearson is a top-30 airport in the the world, handling ~30 million pax per year.