Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Porter Airlines: CEO optimistic jet ban at Toronto airport will be overturned to allow expansion

Robert Deluce is confident his bold plan to allow jets at Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport will fly, overturning a 30-year-old ban.

The founder, president and CEO of Porter Airlines, a seven-year-old carrier based at the Toronto Island airport, said in an interview Monday he is "very optimistic we will get the support we need from (Toronto city) council (by the fall) to amend the Tripartite Agreement" signed in 1983.

That accord, signed by Transport Canada, the Toronto Port Authority and the city of Toronto, specifically bans jets at the small airport, a stone's throw from downtown, and forbids runway extensions.

Porter, which flies only Q400 turboprops out of the noise-restricted airport close to thousands of waterfront condos, disclosed last month that it had placed an order listed at $2.08 billion for up to 30 Bombardier Inc. CSeries airliners. That would launch Porter from a small propeller-aircraft regional carrier into a transcontinental jet airline flying from the island airport to places like Vancouver, Los Angeles, Miami and the Caribbean.

But the order is conditional on Toronto city council overturning the Tripartite agreement by the end of this year. Porter is seeking a 168-metre extension at each end of the airport's runway to comply with takeoff and landing requirements for the CSeries.

The CSeries's maiden flight is due by the end of June.