Travellers use ’copters to skirt closed Niagara border bridges
Hirji urges people to avoid unnecessary travel; firm says rules allow flights
Canada’s snowbirds don’t want to be grounded even during a pandemic, says the manager of a helicopter charter service that offers Niagara-toBuffalo flights five days a week.
Since November, Great Lakes Helicopter has flown close to 500 Canadians to Buffalo Niagara International Airport — in some cases arranging shipment of their vehicles there, as well — said general manager Dwayne Henderson.
From there, he said, most customers head to Florida, though Arizona and Texas are also popular destinations.
With Canada-u.s. land borders closed since the spring — and despite public health officials advising people to stay home and avoid unnecessary travel to limit spread of COVID-19 — the service is “very popular,” said Henderson.
“We’re running pretty well 85 to 90 per cent capacity for the latter half of
December and all the way through January,” he added.
He said Great Lakes uses three helicopters each, making up to four flights per day Thursday through Monday. Customers have come from all across Ontario, as well as from Quebec.
They travel out of Niagara District Airport in Niagara-on-theLake and the cost is $1,200 per flight with a maximum three passengers each time.
Great Lakes will have customers’ vehicles trucked across the border as well for $700 to $1,600, depending on size.
Henderson admitted the company received “a few negative emails and phone calls” from people upset it is providing cross-border travel during the pandemic. “We’re an air operator, same as Air Canada and Westjet,” he said, adding the Kitchener-based company has to meet the same standards and abide by the same rules as those big international carriers.
“For someone to be complaining about us taking passengers over, I would challenge them and say, ‘Are you complaining about Air Canada still flying to the States four times a day with 300 people a pop?’ ” he added.
“We’re no different. We’re doing absolutely nothing different than Air Canada or Westjet.”
He said the company has had no objections from public health officials. They did check up on it, he said, “and (we) satisfied all those inquiries.”
Despite that, Niagara’s acting medical officer of health, Dr. Mustafa Hirji, said international travel is “absolutely not something that anybody should be doing right now.”
Companies that facilitate cross-border trips now, he said, “are putting profits ahead of keeping our society safe.”
The U.S. “has some of the worst COVID-19 spread in the world right now” and travelling there “goes against all the guidance we are getting right now from the provincial and federal governments.”
Great Lakes Helicopter, which also offers summer tourist flights, aerial services such as crop spraying and is a flight training school, started offering flights to Buffalo from Hamilton in November.
Soon after that, it moved to the Niagara airport for shorter flight times.
Henderson said in most cases it takes just more than three hours from liftoff in Niagaraon-the-lake until customers are reunited with their vehicles at the Buffalo airport and can start travelling.
“For our customers, it’s onestop,” he said. “They call us, we get it all organized.”
For COVID-19 safety, masks must be worn inside the helicopters, which are cleaned before and after each trip. At the airport terminals, there are more steps, such as temperature checks and questionnaires to fill out.
He admitted it is surprising so many people still want to travel, despite public health warnings.
Most customers say they plan to stay indoors once they reach Florida or Arizona — “Why wouldn’t I do that in the warmth and in my winter house rather than having to sit in the snow and do exactly the same thing?” Henderson said.