Priceless: Returning home hassle-free
On my desk at work I have a mouse pad with a picture of the Plantation golf course at Kapalua Resort on the island of Maui. It serves as a reminder of an amazing Hawaiian vacation my wife Annette and I took a few summers ago. It also reminds me of the Region of Waterloo International Airport, where we flew out of on WestJet through Calgary and Vancouver, for our first trip to Hawaii. I never really think too much about the logistics of getting to a destination but rather the anticipation of a new adventure or a relaxing vacation. The travel part is the necessary evil. In my opinion, where travel logistics can ruin that same vacation, is a tough journey home. When we disembarked from our WestJet 737 in Breslau after 15 hours of travel from Maui, we breezed through the airport and were at our front door in 20 minutes. That is how an ideal trip should end. Contrast our Hawaiian vacation return with an arrival at Pearson International in Toronto from Fort Myers late in the evening with two travel-weary kids in tow, and then waiting almost two hours for our luggage to come to the baggage carousel. My blood pressure was right back where it started before our vacation. I was very excited when American Airlines started flying to Chicago from here. Not only does it mean we can get to Chicago out of the region, but now we can get almost anywhere in the world out of YKF, using Chicago to connect. The only downside for us with the Chicago announcement was we had taken the kids to Chicago the year prior to American launching the service. Chicago is a great city for kids. There are so many kidfriendly attractions like the Museum of Science and Technology, the Shedd Aquarium, the newly renovated Adler Planetarium, the architectural boat tour, the free Chicago Zoo, Wrigley Field, the Field Museum, the Sears tower, and our favourite, the Sunday morning House of Blues gospel brunch. We were in Chicago for an entire week and unable to do everything we wanted to. I only wish we could have flown out of here and, more importantly, arrived home here rather than suffering through another Pearson heartburn. Another great Region of Waterloo International Airport experience for us was flying to Ottawa on Bearskin Air. We were invited to a friend’s surprise 50th birthday party on a
Friday evening in May a few years ago. Unfortunately, I had a business commitment well into that same day and the thought of driving through traffic in Toronto in rush hour to get there was not appealing. I did not think there was any chance of making it. We ended up flying to Ottawa on Bearskin. Fifty minutes in the air over all the traffic headaches and we arrived at the party in good time! I am a big advocate of the economic benefits that come to the local business community with a flourishing Region of Waterloo International Airport. I know it can be a tipping point when companies are considering locating to this community and that it makes it more viable for those of us doing business here already. From my family’s point of view, when it comes to leisure travel, I believe a strong economic argument can be made about flying out of the Region of Waterloo International Airport. If you work in all the costs associated with flying out of Toronto or Buffalo, flying out of here is not that much different. The priceless part of the argument is the ease of returning home without all the big airport hassles of Toronto or the cross border hassles of Buffalo. Every day I look at my mouse pad and try to figure out how we can get back to Maui. While I am unsure about when we’ll get back, I know for sure we’ll fly out of the Region of Waterloo International Airport to get there. It will make returning home so much easier!