By Nick Stewart
With its eyes to the sky, Hicks & Lawrence and its parent company Discovery Air are looking to expand their reach in the Dryden area with a $500,000 upgrade to their facilities at the local airport.
With this investment, Hicks & Lawrence will establish a combined fixed and rotary wing flight operations and maintenance centre at the site, which will be able to provide the airline, its partners as well as various government and corporate agencies with a hub for specialized air transport services.
The physical upgrade, which is expected to be completed by the fall, will enhance the company’s existing services, such as fire suppression and resource protection charter tasks for the Ministry of Natural Resources.
“I think it’s a wonderful thing,” says George Friesen, manager of the Dryden airport. “It definitely bodes well for northwestern Ontario. Anytime there’s a capital investment in the airport, be it from us or from one of our tenants, it’s obviously good news, and in my mind, it certainly indicates that Discovery Air and Hicks & Lawrence see a very positive future here.”
This development will also find Great Slave Helicopters joining Hicks & Lawrence under the local umbrella of Discovery Air, who will host the additional equipment within its upgraded hangars.
Like Hicks & Lawrence, Great Slave Helicopters is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Discovery Air.
The investment is expected to have an economic impact that will reach beyond the airport.
Friesen says that this news will translate into a strong financial benefit for the community and the region at large, as airline-related spin-off employment tends to skew higher than that stemming from other sectors as a result of the additional need for transportation, support, administrative and regulatory.
As an example, he points out that in the trucking sector, every created job produces a spin-off of 1.1 extra jobs, while aviation jobs produce 2.4 to 3 extra jobs.
“Aviation is a very capital and labour-intensive activity,” he says. “It calls for not only pilots but engineers, mechanics and support services. It also provides a reason for these people to work and then stay in the area. The spin-off is absolutely phenomenal.”
Hicks & Lawrence’s growing presence in Dryden is also likely to translate into a stronger economic future for the airport, which derives much of its income from usage of its space and services.
“From a revenue perspective, this is a terrific development,” says Friesen.
“A lot of our fees are based on aviation activity, so the more take-offs and landings, the better.
The other thing too, is that with greater activity, there’s a greater demand for fuel, and we have revenue streams there.”
Friesen says that Hicks & Lawrence’s announcement represents a positive reflection of the various improvements that have been done to the airport over the past few years, such as a $3.5 million rehabilitation of its paved areas in 2005, and a new airfield lighting system which was installed in 2000.
“All those capital works that we did are in place and now we have a set number of years where we won’t have any massive upheavals of construction, which gives a stable platform for any aviation companies or their support services,” he says. “That’s the payoff for us. We’ve done our part to build the things that these people need and now the private sector is stepping up to the plate and saying ‘Great, this is the place we want to be.”
