By IAN ROSS
Once a sleepy Georgian Bay fly-in destination, expect the Parry Sound Area Municipal Airport to be buzzing with activity this summer as a $1.5 million expansion gets underway.
Not long ago, airport management received an unexpected gift in the wake of the Highway 69 reconstruction. The Ministry of Transportation (MTO) had earlier expropriated some airport land for use as a staging area for road contractors' equipment.
The six-acre bush plot, now cleared and levelled, has been returned to the airport commission. Officials there have big plans to use the highway-
accessible property as the foundation for a proposed industrial park expansion.
A newly revitalized airport commission of motivated local volunteers has plans in the works to build between 15 and 20 light plane hangars on the
reclaimed MTO property, addressing the current shortage of hangar space.
The commission is planning a June groundbreaking with the project expected to be completed by March 2006.
Some hangars would be privately owned, while others would be leased.
Airport commission chairman Doug Sainsbury, a Seguin Township councillor, says many private individuals are in the process of securing contractors. Once the surveying work is complete in May, they can move in and build.
The commission intends to expand their terminal building with a restaurant, add more airplane tie-downs to generate revenue, build an airport equipment hangar and to lease out a building to Found Aircraft for additional manufacturing space.
In handling about 2,000 landings per year, airport commissioner Rick McNabb estimates air traffic has increased 25 per cent per year over the last five years, coinciding with the explosion of cottage development around Parry Sound, Lake Rosseau, Lake Muskoka and Georgian Bay.
The commission's game plan is to make the facility financially self-sufficient within three years.
"We're really putting together a plan that has this thing paying its own way," says McNabb.
A good chunk of the airport's revenues - about 70 to 80 per cent - are raised from fuel sales, with the rest coming from land leases, aircraft tie-downs and overnight parking fees. The Township of Seguin and the Town of Parry Sound also cover some operational shortfalls.
With $600,000 in private investment pooled, the commission is waiting on FedNor and the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund to each contribute $325,000 for the expansion project. It is expected to create between 15 and 20 new jobs at the terminal, as well as some skilled maintenance and mechanical positions at Found Aircraft, Lawrence Aero and B.P. Flight Training.
As the last piece of their funding scheme, the commission secured $120,000 in municipal reserve funds from Seguin and Parry Sound.
Sainsbury says the hangar construction should boost air traffic and create a "snowball effect" for other airside businesses to expand.
Lawrence Aero Enterprises, a five-employee light airplane maintenance company, is expected to double the size of their facility, adding a 5,000-square foot maintenance building in anticipation of the increased air traffic.
Found Aircraft will do the same by leasing a commissioned-owned building to expand their manufacturing space.
McNabb, a local restaurant owner and private pilot, says the airport's geographic location harbours great potential with a booming cottage market as well as the evolving social demographic of the area.
The field is home to about 25 local flyers with the rest coming as seasonal cottage tourists from points throughout southern Ontario.
The ability to telework from the cottage has lengthened people's time at the cottage well into the shoulder seasons and an aging, financially well off demographic are contributing to more fly-ins.
"The larger number of people learning to fly are 45 to 50 years old, who have the (financial) resources and cottages up here," says McNabb. "We have to expand in order to accommodate that."
Some private interest has been expressed to build a gas station, a motel, a restaurant, plus two other businesses, wanting to take advantage of the property's visibility and highway access.
McNabb says no firm decisions have been made whether to expand to include service businesses or to pursue light industrial aviation-related companies such as an aircraft painting company to complement Found Aircraft. The manufacturers of the successful Bush Hawk light aircraft presently outsource their painting work.
Their longer term plans are to set up a Canada Customs CANPASS system to accommodate American fly-in visitors and they are seriously contemplating lengthening their 4,000-foot paved runway by an extra 1,000 feet to handle executive jets.
For the latter, they would need to install a high-pressure fuel system for larger aircraft.
"We can get small jets now but we're limited by the fact they can't clear customs and won't (re)fuel because of (the short length) of the runway," says McNabb.
The commission is also receptive to scheduled commercial flights from a regional carrier.
McNabb says the airport plays a major role in generating tourism dollars but also serves a functional value for the community in handling air ambulance service and aircraft from the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Canadian military for training flights and refuelling purposes.
The airport has also hired a new full-time airport manager Cathy Earles, a qualified flight examiner and instructor from Midland, who will assume her new post, June 1.
