^

El Al was using Mirabel as a hub well before that too. In the 80s, three B737s (operated by Nordair and Quebecair) used to carry the passengers that arrived from TLV to MIA, ORD and BOS.

http://www.webcitation.org/6BCAaoBZy...0-%201441.html

There were gusts of over 50Kts (>100kmh) at Pearson last night. That's quite some wind, I don't think I've ever seen it that high. I'm glad I wasn't on duty, it's much calmer this morning.

Same thing in YUL this morning. 50 kt gusts. The control tower was shaking all over the place. Also due to the wind, you could see several transformers blow up across the city. Made for some awesome light show early in the morning.

Looks like Hamilton Airport is about to get a nice boost in transit service in the near future, full BRT to the airport.

James North LRT would be killed for airport express bus in new plan

http://www.thespec.com/opinion-story...s-in-new-plan/

Hamilton's $1 billion LRT project may be getting a game-changing shakeup.

Mayor Fred Eisenberger says Metrolinx is considering killing the 2-km James Street North spur line for an alternative that has "greater value and cost efficiency."

"I don't know what and when the province is going to announce anything on this but I do know it's been a topic of conversation."

Multiple sources, however, say the proposal is to replace the James North spur with an express bus service from the waterfront to the airport on James and Upper James — essentially building the full A-line route that's part of the city-wide BLAST express bus service.

Source says an announcement, originally planned for Monday, is now expected to take place in a couple of weeks.

The proposal would not affect the 11-km east-west LRT route from McMaster to the Queenston traffic circle.

Eisenberger says the James spur was an "add on" to the $1 billion provincial funding announcement that had never undergone a cost-benefit analysis.

"I assume that Metrolinx has done it now and I'm pretty confident it shows that it's not the most viable business case analysis evaluation … for an LRT on James."

If the spur is replaced with express buses from the waterfront to the airport, Eisenberger thinks it probably would provide a better bang for the buck in terms of enhancing public transportation.

West Mountain Coun. Terry Whitehead is greeting the proposed change with a mix of enthusiasm and caution.

"From my perspective, it's great news. But if we were given a choice, I would have a tough time taking that over getting (LRT) out to Eastgate," as originally proposed.

Whitehead has argued the necessity of linking the LRT system with other areas of the city, but he also believes light rail would drive more ridership if it went all the way to Eastgate Mall.

BRT instead of LRT so not as good? :shrug:

We're getting LRT for the B-Line. The province wanted a small 2km LRT from downtown to the West Harbour GO Station, but that's such a small spur line and kinda of a waste of resources and money. So instead we're getting a FULL BRT along the A-Line, waterfront to airport. The A-Line is probably twice as long as the B-Line.

Isn't the province paying for the LRT so it's free? Building BRT instead is definitely an inferior mode of transit . BRT isn't effective in getting people out of cars.

The 2km LRT A-line spur that we are losing was suppose to run in mixed traffic, so there wasn't really a benefit over BRT for that stretch. Plus now we get an additional 13km added on to the A-line, and around 11km of that will be dedicated BRT lanes.

There seems to be some confusion from some people who think the whole line is switching from LRT to BRT, but it is just one small spur.

I posted this in the transit thread showing the new plan which explains it a bit for anyone confused...

So making the whole BRT route to the airport LRT instead isn't doable?

Not really as the lrt would raise costs, probably double them. The brt costs just as much as the 2km lrt spur.

The WAA put out a release saying that Richardson international served more tha 4M passengers on a 6% increase in traffic. No official count available yet.

Copied my post from the Kelowna thread.

YLW has posted their 2016 numbers, and they're awesome!
2016 served 1,732,113 pax. That's an increase of 8.7% from 2015.
December 2016 was also YLW's busiest month ever, serving 166,537 pax.

Awesome growth for YLW and Kelowna!

"Winnipeg Airports Authority (WAA) has surpassed its previous passenger volume record for the third consecutive year, reaching more than 4 million passengers through its gates in 2016. As a result, WAA will be saying “thank you” to visitors at Winnipeg Richardson International Airport over four days of celebration that mark the achievement.

This is the first time that the community airport has reached four million passengers in its existence. Passenger traffic at Winnipeg Richardson International Airport increased in excess of 6% when compared to 2015. More details will be made available in the quarterly press release towards the beginning of February."

Source: http://www.waa.ca/media/news/article...ssenger-record

Cathay Pacific increasing YYZ to double daily for the summer, also increasing YVR... :)

https://www.skiesmag.com/press-relea...-daily-summer/

It YWG keeps that up, they will surpass YOW in 2-3 years time. Ottawa has been stagnant with not even a 1% increase in the last few years.

2016 was an amazing year for Canada's airports.

YYZ should be around 44.5 million
YVR around 22 million
YUL 16.5 million
YYC 15.7 million

Interesting. Peak summer only though, mostly July and August.

Still, goes to show that they prefer to bulk up YVR and YYZ rather than start a new Canadian destination.

In my opinion, this new codeshare with AC will kill any chance of CX flying to YYC.

http://www.newswire.ca/news-releases...610908715.html
WestJet adding service to Hamilton, maybe the local airport authority should just fund a ULCC every few years.

Is it possible that this is just being started to drive New Leaf out of the market, and quietly drop it when New Leaf goes away?

Greg

It's not just possible, it's 100% certain. It's not just a coincidence that WS is matching a bunch of NewLeaf's routes.

Isn't Terminal 3 at Pearson having gate capacity issues at peak times as well?