Airport management model proves its worth
As picturesque as it is practical, Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport has served the city for 80 years and is now Canada’s ninth busiest airport, serving 2.8 million passengers annually and connecting the city regionally and globally. (See story page 2.) supplied
In the 17 years since the federal government began handing over management and operations of Canada’s airports to not-for-profit, locally managed airport authorities, they have evolved from investment-starved facilities dependent on taxpayer subsidies to some of the world’s most modern airports earning regular awards for performance and passenger satisfaction.
“Back before airports were transferred from the federal government, they were being operated at a significant loss to taxpayers,” says Daniel-Robert Gooch, president of the Canadian Airports Council, the industry association that lobbies the federal government on issues that affect the business interests of Canada’s airports.
“Now we’ve moved into a model where airport users are paying for the cost of airport infrastructure investments. Airports have invested more than $27-billion of user fees into airport infrastructure to expand and improve facilities for travellers and support the tremendous growth in demand that we’ve seen over the last 30 years,” he adds.
While investment in infrastructure has improved travellers’ experiences and positioned Canada’s airports for future expansion, Mr. Gooch says it has also helped them become some of the country’s most energy -efficient facilities to the point where 14 Canadian airports are now participating in the Airport Carbon Accreditation Program, an international program for airports to catalogue and reduce their carbon emissions.
After leaving the airport authorities to raise their own investment funds following the transfer of the facilities in the early 1990, the federal government has now started to play a bigger role in financing some aspects of airport infrastructure.
For example, the federal government is allowing the 21 major airports in the National Airports System to access the National Trade Corridors Fund, which has provided financing for cargo facilities at the Montreal, Winnipeg and Halifax airports. However, more needs to be done in other areas, says Mr. Gooch.
“We need that approach to continue, but we also need more federal investment in infrastructure funding for small airports that were transferred from the federal government into municipal authorities or not for profit corporations,” he says.
Airports with fewer than 525,000 passengers a year are eligible for the Airports Capital Assistance Program, which helps airports with low traffic volumes pay for safety- and security-related infrastructure.
“The problem is the funding for that program has been stuck at $38.5-million a year for 20 years,” says Mr. Gooch. “We would like to see it increased to at least $95-million a year to account for a backlog of projects that just haven’t been funded because of the program funding ceiling, as well as to account for inflation.”
With strong growth in air travel expected to continue, there is also increasing demand for investment in airport connectivity, particularly in the major urban centres, says Mr. Gooch.
One of the challenges is that the expansion of transit, which is typically a municipal function, has not kept pace with the development of the airports.
While airports are still not as connected to transit as they could be, there have been “tremendous improvements” over the last 10 to 15 years, says Mr. Gooch, including the Canada Line in Vancouver, the UP Express in Toronto, the REM being built in Montreal, the LRT in Ottawa, and airports around the country working with transit officials to expand bus services.
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