By NICK STEWART
Unprecedented levels of activity have maintained the momentum at the Sudbury Airport, and with several new initiatives on the horizon, more big announcements are expected in 2008.
“Business has been at unprecedented levels in almost every sector of our business,” says Robert Johnston, CEO of the Greater Sudbury Airport.
“We’re looking at a number of ambitious things to keep that momentum going.”
Chief among them is the pursuit of daily direct routes into the United States. Since the 1980s, many Sudburians traveling to the U.S. have attempted to save money by driving to Toronto’s Pearson International Airport before taking an international flight to their destination, rather than taking a connecting flight from Sudbury to Toronto.
Johnston says by encouraging direct flights into the U.S. the airport will be able to bring prices down and increase traveling convenience, thereby recapturing a portion of the leakage to Pearson.
Discussions are being planned with a number of American air carriers, the first being Northwest Airlines. Potential destinations are likely to be dependent on the carrier, though places like Detroit are on officials’ minds, Johnston says.
If successful, the attraction of direct United States routes will require a series of additional investments at the airport to properly accommodate international travel.
More customs staff would need to be hired, as the airport currently has but one customs officer. This has already been a costly problem for the airport, which has had to fly in several customs officers from Sault Ste. Marie at a cost of “hundreds of thousands of dollars” during Sunwing Airlines’ recent seasonal direct flights to Cuba, Mexico and Florida.
The lack of appropriate facilities has also been an obstacle for its seasonal international flights, meaning that a new customs facility would also have to be built to accommodate any daily direct flights.
The creation of such a facility would carry a price tag of anywhere from $500,000 to $2 million, though the exact specifics would depend on the size of the aircraft committed to the international route.
Much of the airport’s interest in these types of international flights is being driven by the strong economy, Johnston says. Sky-high nickel prices have helped to increase scheduled air service numbers from 2007 by 11 per cent over the previous year, while load factors have reached 80 per cent, up from the 65 - 70 per cent typically seen throughout most of the last decade.
Business has risen so much that officials are also looking to focus their energies on establishing more capacity to and from the airport. Talks have already been initiated to try and entice existing air carriers to add more flights; as an example, Johnston says he’s arranged meetings with Air Canada’s Toronto manager to discuss increasing its daily Jazz flights from six to seven.
Steady increases in business in recent years have also accounted for a nearly completed eight-acre, $1.2 million development of airside lots to allow for up to nine new hangars. Interest has been so strong that one hangar is already under construction, with another seven due to begin in the spring. While Johnston was not at liberty to divulge who was pursuing these projects, he said it represented a “wide sector” which ranged from the medical field to engineering and construction firms.
The airport is also setting its sights on one of the lots created through the airside development for the potential creation of a new flight training centre. In partnership with Eagle Flight Centre, a local company that helps people achieve their pilot’s license, the airport would look at building a new hangar, classroom facilities, as well as space for a flight simulator and other necessary components.
As many other airports throughout the North have linkages with related programs in local post-secondary schools, Johnston says this facility could potentially follow suit should Cambrian College or Collège Boréal ever branch into that sector.
“A lot of this is exploratory, mind you, and we’re still moving on it, but it’s all vision.”
