Airports and Capacities

                                         Hamilton’s Chamber of Commerce warns that an airport at Pickering will be                                as much as a White Elephant as Mirabel in Quebec.

“I’ve been referring to a Pickering Airport as ‘Mirabel West’. That project was clearly an unnecessary and hugely expensive piece of infrastructure and the building of an airport at Pickering makes as much sense”, said Hamilton Chamber President, Rebecca Wissenz. “The government’s watershed proposed legislation ‘Places to Grow’ and the ‘Greenbelt Protection Plan’ identifies that the growth patterns are moving out of the GTA in our direction and Hamilton’s Airport is the most advantageously located to service that growth pattern and the huge U.S. market.

“Hamiltons Chamber is working closely with Tradeport and the City to ensure that Hamilton International Airport is recognized by the government as the best and obvious companion airport to Pearson, and this message is being heard”, she said.

Transport Canada Report Released July, 2004 - Regional and Small Airports Study

In a Nutshell,

 The airspace and airport capacity figures used by the GTAA in their proposal are inaccurate.

• Hamilton airport has a design capacity of 15, not 9, million passengers/year as stated by GTAA
• Kitchener Waterloo Regional Reliever Airport was excluded entirely from the analysis but                             has two 7000 foot runways on the ground today and a terminal design capability of 8 million.
• Kitchener Waterloo airport is only 2 kilometres further away from the draft plan study area,                               yet it was conveniently excluded from consideration and discussion.
• Toronto City Centre airport is excluded entirely from the analysis of capacity and roles despite                     ongoing plans to expand without the bridge connection.
• Brampton Airport was also excluded from consideration and discussion.

            The design capacity of existing airports today exceeds the forecast passenger volume of 2032                   as outlined by the GTAA in their proposal.

• The GTAA optimistically forcasts 2032 traffic of 70 million passengers. The design capacity on the ground        today is 72 million. Pearson 50 million,  Hamilton 15 Million, and Kitchener Waterloo 8 million, and that’s     not including Buttonville, Oshawa, City Centre or Brampton Airports.....clearly this plan is 25 years premature!