New group sees opportunities in air travel overflow from Pearson
Region of Waterloo International Airport part of newly launched Southern Ontario Airport Network
TORONTO’S PEARSON AIRPORT IS expected to hit capacity in the next few decades, and the region is looking to pick up some of that overflow.
With the Southern Ontario Airport Network (SOAN), the Region of Waterloo International Airport has joined with ten others from across southern Ontario to map out a busier future.
The collaboration was announced on Tuesday morning at Lake Simcoe Regional Airport. By working together, the group is looking to tackle the growing demand for air travel in this part of the province, with numbers projected to reach 110 million travellers by the 2040s.
Regional airport general manager Chris Wood says the SOAN initiative has been in the works for a while.
“Two years ago, under the Greater Toronto Airport Authority, we got together to talk about what could be facing us with Pearson growing at the rate they are growing,” he said. “We wanted to see what that would look like in different airports in southern Ontario. So, for two years we have been talking and now, we continue to work on some strategies to deal with that.”
It ties in perfectly with the airport’s recently approved master plan.
“We are a step ahead in that department in that we have a plan going forward locally,” he said. “We hope to position ourselves so that we are an attractive option when airlines start making decisions about what they are going to do beyond Pearson. They only have so much capacity there.”
The region’s new master plan for the Breslau facility has laid out milestones in passenger traffic when looking at future improvements and expansions to the airport. It is expected Pearson will be overflowing with passengers, who will make the decision to use the local airport more often.
Now that SOAN has been made official, the group’s plan is to complete an economic analysis, look at ground transportation needs of southern Ontarians, while reducing emissions and developing strategies for sustainable airport growth. The idea is to have,“a forum to discuss how to understand the opportunities and constraints to air service development in the region in a comprehensive way”, according to SOAN.
Wood says that although there is a collaborative aspect, the member airports will still be making independent decisions.
“I think what was announced today is really just the beginning to say, ‘OK, we have a formalized network of airports that are going to come together on a regular basis to discuss a holistic approach to aviation in southern Ontario’. How each airport reacts to that is still up to each individual airport. We here in Waterloo Region have recently announced our 20-year master plan, which really takes the opportunity into consideration.”
The ten other member airports are Toronto Pearson International Airport, Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport, Hamilton John C. Munro International Airport, Kingston/Norman Rogers Airport, Lake Simcoe Regional Airport, London International Airport, Oshawa Executive Airport, Niagara District Airport, Peterborough Airportand Windsor International Airport.