File photo of London International Airport. (Photo by Miranda Chant, Blackburn News)File photo of London International Airport. (Photo by Miranda Chant, Blackburn News)
London

Network To Boost Southern Ontario Airports

Eleven southern Ontario airports, including London's, have banded together to cope with a surge of travellers expected over the next 25 years.

The Southern Ontario Airport Network (SOAN) was announced on Tuesday. It is comprised of the London International Airport, Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport, Hamilton John C. Munro International Airport, Lake Simcoe Regional Airport, Oshawa Executive Airport, Niagara District Airport, Peterborough Airport, Region of Waterloo Airport, Toronto Pearson International Airport, Windsor International Airport, and Kingston/Norman Rogers Airport.

Demand for air travel in southern Ontario is expected to reach approximately 110-million passengers by the early 2040s, according to the airport consortium. The anticipated jump in travellers is more than double the current number using regional airports.

"Destiny is in our own hands," said Mike Seabrook, president and CEO of the London International Airport. "There isn't any reason why we can't be 1.5-million or 2-million passengers over the next decade. We're over half a million today."

Seabrook believes that opportunity for growth at regional airports will come as Pearson, the nation's busiest airport, focuses on becoming a North American mega-hub.

"The reality with Pearson is that it is getting close to capacity in terms of the number of take-offs and landings that they can handle in a given period of time. They have a lot of smaller aircraft, 30 seat aircraft, 50 seat aircraft from smaller secondary airports in Ontario that fly in," said Seabrook. "As they look to go from 40-million to 80-million passengers there is going to be less flying of the smaller aircrafts. For a market like London, where we have a decent population and could support direct service to new destinations, we believe this is going to open new opportunities for us not to have to go through Toronto all the time to connect but to have more direct flights."

Last year, 515,000 passengers flew in and out of London, a record for the airport that's likely to be smashed this year.

"We are up about 5% or 6% this year, year-to-date," said Seabrook. "So hopefully we reach near the 550,000 passenger mark in 2017."

Among the short and long term goals of SOAN is to complete a catchment and demand study of the region to identify opportunities for future point to point growth and get a better understanding of the ground transportation needs.

Currently, 1.4-million passengers choose to drive from London to fly out of Pearson, and roughly 600,000 head west to the Detroit Metropolitan Airport.

"Nobody wants to drive to Toronto or Detroit. They're forced to do it to get direct service or better value," said Seabrook. "We've branded ourselves as the easy and comfortable airport. If we can stay with that philosophy and grow the airport, we think there is a lot of growth ahead for us."

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