“Toronto, to me, it’s an issue,” he said, between travel expenses and the extra time spent in transit. “I’ve flown with Swoop before and been very happy, don’t get me wrong. But I can’t help feel this was just a ruse to get people to buy tickets from Hamilton, knowing full well they would end up flying from Toronto.”
https://www.thespec.com/business/202...da-travel.html

I would feel the same way. Though I understand the issue the airlines have to deal with, trying to run a business in an "unusual" time.

I'm willing to give Swoop and WestJet and others that serve Hamilton leeway given the situation we've been in. But the feds are going to have to open things up sooner rather than later.

YHM will reopen to scheduled international flights 30 NOV 2021.

that is fantastic news

From Forge & Foster

2240 & 2254 Upper James Street. Next to and south of the HSR garage.

1205 Glancaster Road. This is at the dead end and up against airport property.

Jeez $50 million for property near the airport. This reminds me the boom for Upper James after the Linc got built. Everything from the Linc to Rymal is pretty much the result of the Linc.

Swoop Summer 2022 Core Schedule Released

Abbotsford - 1x Daily
Edmonton - 1x Daily
Halifax - 1x Daily
Winnipeg - 1x Daily

Swoop gave Edmonton a massive dump of new routes, so hopefully, we'll get the next dumping of them. Swoop is adding Charlottetown, Comox, London (ON), Moncton, Ottawa, Regina and Saskatoon to their route network. There is no doubt Hamilton will score several of these new destinations soon.

As of now, Swoop will have two aircraft based in Hamilton.
Aircraft 1: YHM-YWG-YHM-YEG-YHM
Aircraft 2: YHM-YXX-YHM-YHZ-YHM

Westjet is still slated for 2x daily Calgary flights.
With the current flights, we'll see 6 daily departures, but I think we all know that will increase exponentially.

Really hoping for the Hamilton Kelowna route to come back!

We'll have to keep an eye out in early 2022.

Calgary-based Lynx Air will be launching with 3 aircraft. Looks like they'll be eyeing domestic routes around Calgary.

Toronto-based? Canada jetlines will hopefully, for real this time, launch as well as they look into being a budget snowbird airline (like sunwing).

I'll be honest, I'm really hoping Lynx adds YHM-YYC, because I absolutely hate seeing how Westjet is charging a premium to fly to YYC from YHM.

Seriously, How does Westjet think it's okay to charge $79 from Kitchener, but $300 from Hamilton.

In a word, competition.

It would take me about 20 mins to get to Hamilton airport from my home. It's 45 mins in good traffic to Pearson, and 50 mins to Waterloo.

So why bother offering lower priced flights from Hamilton when there are some available to people like me at alternate airports, that are still much cheaper if including the personal cost of ground transport and parking.


Competitors to Westjet/Swoop will be very welcome at Hamilton. Let's just hope the market will be strong enough to support them, and that they'll be able to withstand Westjet's fight.

Is it just me or did Hamilton vastly increase their parking fees? I thought I remembered it being closer to $60/week for parking, now its $135/week (!!). Toronto Pearson's value lot is cheaper, yet alone the discount shuttle lots!

Case in point, that the Downtown peeps didn't think it wise because it didn't do anything for them with their tax dollars when the LINC was conceived and built. In reality it did and does and will do time and time again forever growing.
The Mountain peeps complaining about how the LRT won't benefit them directly with their tax dollars at work, and I won't list them, because there are just far too many to jot down.
People have to look at the big picture, the long game because in this industry that is what you are working with on many levels.
Well, that's just my viewpoint.

Your point of view is the way I think people should look at things.

There was (and is) angst about the "Airport Employment Growth District" too.

You'll rarely get universal agreement on anything, but every opportunity the city embraces brings something good to all its citizens, even the ones who don't benefit directly.

There's often angst from downtown residents like me because suburban expansion, suburban style parking lots and car oriented development are often paid for by much of our property taxes. Downtown residents pay the highest property tax per sq ft in the city, and highest per capita.

I was referring to employment land development. The stuff around the airport is important to our economy now and will be more so in the future. Same goes for the redevelopment of industrial lands in the north end.

I agree with you about what's paying for what. Suburban housing and much of the retail is not developed in a way that is financially sustainable in the longer term. Builders can cry all they want about people passing Hamilton by if there are no more greenfield SFHs available in the future, or that development charges aren't always spent by cities, but the reality is they cover only a fraction of the long term costs of infrastructure and services.

I hear some in the suburbs complaining about their taxes and how much they're going up, and how they "subsidize" the old city of Hamilton, but in reality there are many things those tax revenues have to cover in the suburban fringe, and the future maintenance and replacement costs for that infrastructure won't be cheap.

We live just west of downtown. Our property taxes are approaching $6,000 per year and I bet they will reach that in 2022; they rose 4% in 2020 and nearly 11% (!) in 2021. This for a 95-year-old modified 2-storey home of fairly modest square footage on a narrow lot. I'm not griping about the amount, but we're definitely not living in some haven financed by homeowners in Flamborough or Ancaster or the Stoney Creek mountain.

On a related note, the Amazon signage is up on their new building. Noticed it today, driving that section of Upper James.

Hmm, 11% in 2021? How did that happen? The citywide rate was 4% or so I thought last year? I know my taxes seemed to barely change at all, though with area rating I think Stoney Creeks ended up being a bit below the city-wide rate.

Reassessment keeps getting delayed too so it's not from that..

Reassessment is going to be a fun one for Hamilton whenever it ends up happening. The lower city's property taxes are going to go through the roof as the assessed value of the lower city has skyrocketed since 2016, even more so than the mountain. There are a lot of houses in the east end that are selling for $600k that have $100-150k assessed values..

Suburban residential can be sustainable if it's taxed properly, but a lot of municipalities problems is that they try to keep residential taxes low by instituting very high commercial rates (Hamilton has basically the highest commercial / industrial tax rate in the GTHA). Hamilton's problem is that up until very recently it's industrial tax base was shrinking quite rapidly while it's suburban tax base was growing.. causing issues. The increased amount of industrial development in the city will help immensely with this, and eventually will ease budgetary pressures. Industrial eats up farmland like crazy but it's much higher tax rates means it's actually more sustainable from a municipal finance perspective than subdivisions as they need far less services and the increased tax rates makes up for the higher costs of the low density.

Assessment value doesn't matter too much because property taxes are done on a proportional basis. It doesn't matter that the $600,000 property is assessed at $150,000 so long as the $1m property is assessed at $250,000.

Our assessed value did increase, by 9%, so that is why. Looking up neighbouring properties on the city's inquiry site, some had even larger property tax increases while others were below 2%. It's a mixed bag here. Hopefully our 2022 increase will be smaller, but I suspect it will still be 4 or 5%.

We've been in this home less than two years, so our tax history is limited. But there's a huge gap between our assessment and the likely re-sale value of the home, and also a gap between that of our home and similar properties. I expect the assessment will keep going up, but I think what's happened is some assessments on our street have risen faster relative to the broader neighbourhood, which is likely to catch up... there is still a lot of gentrification happening here.

The housing stock is also very mixed -- it's mostly composed of houses built in the early 20th century; some are two-storey brick, and some are single-floor with wood siding. A number of homes have been extensively renovated, but many have had nothing done to them in years. There are several properties where newer houses were built in the 1970s or 80s, and a couple with brand new structures on them or planned to be built soon.

Perhaps we can have someone start a new thread about tax rates rather than flood the airport thread.

Thanks

my point was that the lower city has increased a lot faster since 2016 than the mountian has - a $150k property in 2016 has gone up to $600k, a 300% increase, while the typical suburban house has probably gone from $400k to $800-900k - "only" a 150% increase.

yes!!!!

Eh, it's kind of related. With an active membership of like 15 people I don't see the point of creating hundreds of threads for individual specific topics. I get the organization piece, but with so few of us here, I don't think it really makes sense.

There's this one... it's quite old, but seems to be the only one related to municipal taxes.
https://skyscraperpage.com/forum/sho...d.php?t=144626

I suggest a mod rename it and shift these tax posts over there.

Then I guess we could flood every thread with tax chatter and how every development is going to impact taxes? Honestly for me o don't care about the taxes in Hamilton at all. I don't live there but love the city and where it's headed.

Don't read it then, I don't care about every sentence you write out. No point in getting touchy about it, were all friends here.

Lol I wouldn't read it if it was in a tax thread. But when I see their is a new post in the airport thread, I expect to open it up and see a new post about airport developments not about taxes or anything else not related.

A new airline in Canada is launching on next Wednesday the 19th. It is called Lynx Air and is based out of Calgary. They have not said where they are flying yet. I expect that will be on Wednesday.

One interesting note, Vijay Bathija, former CEO of YHM is now their Chief Commercial Officer.

They are going to be flying B737-8 max aircraft. They have one already delivered. The company is/was enerjet so they have aircraft, personnel and the permits to operate.

www.https://www.flylynx.com/

Don't expect them to announce YHM. Canada Jetlines is also launching this year from YYZ. I think Hamilton council needs to start questioning the people running YHM. I don't think they are doing near enough to build up passenger services. I think that majority of people prefer bigger airports because they have more amenities. I know people who pass by YHM to drive to YYZ when they could have gotten a similar flight from YHM.

The biggest issue with YHM is the lack of flights. My partner has used YHM before when it worked, but with 1 -7 flights a week sometimes, it's hard to plan a trip around available flights. We had a trip to Winnipeg planned for my partner's work conference and YHM flight times just didn't work for the few days we were going to be there. We would have had to stay an extra two nights than planned. So YYZ it is.

I think there's only so much the airport can do -- the market is Toronto-focused and we're just too close, so Hamilton can be well served by Pearson. It doesn't make sense to gamble tens of millions of dollars on new passenger facilities without a guarantee airlines will actually want to fly here. We'll probably see it at some point, but I'd guess at least a decade or more from now and maybe longer... incremental investments will remain the way it gets done for a long time yet, in my opinion.

We've seen airlines do fairly well here if they provide enough service (like WestJet), but then when something opens up at YYZ they jump at it. There's just too much opportunity for business there with the available connections. If Pearson gets congested enough and can't add new service then we may see airports like Hamilton and Waterloo take the spill-over, but I think the way they've planned things there will be room to grow for a while (e.g., I believe Terminal 1 has a lot of capacity for expansion, maybe they eventually reconfigure the terminals to allow for gates on both sides and have passengers go through a new central hub that connects ground transportation to the terminals). And who knows what will happen with air travel post-pandemic: will it return to previous trends, and if so how fast will that happen? Or will we see a spike of travel due to pent-up demand, that levels off? Or will people be reluctant to travel globally as much as before?

I think if there's enough demand from new industry in Hamilton we'll see more flights. Doubt it will be enough to want to invest in brand new large terminal facilities, but that demand could also change the game.

The freight business is booming at YHM though, and that will probably grow and grow. And it's a money-maker. Airport management is doing well in that regard, I think.

YVR, YYC, YYZ, and YOW are the launch destinations based on teasers.

Ever since Swoop went to Toronto, they've been shafting YHM from new destinations. I hope we get a good amount of new spots for Summer 2022. Hopefully, the 3 maritime routes that were supposed to launch in Summer 2020.

It will be interesting how YHM & YKF compare in terms of destinations this Summer. Flair is solidifying YKF as a base with more destinations, but fewer frequencies and with more destinations set to be announced in the coming weeks and months.

I haven't heard much from Swoop on their expansion plans, and I haven't even heard if they're getting more frames this summer, aside from the new one being based in Edmonton.

I miss the Summer of 2019 where we had about 8-12 daily flights.

Lynx Air announced their schedule today. They start April 11 to Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Kelowna and Winnipeg.

No Hamilton then.

I still hope Swoop expands US destinations going into the summer.

Regional airlines need business travelers to be sustainable. Business travelers want to have other flights to choose from, if for some reason they have to miss their booked flight. That is lacking at Hamilton because of the proximity to Pearson.

A new article anna.aero, Charles Duncan, President, Swoop, stated “Edmonton is an important base for us, as are Hamilton and Toronto, and we’re adding aircraft and services from these.”

He also stated, “For us at Swoop, we are getting back on the front foot now post-pandemic and planning for a lot of growth,” Duncan explained. “We started the pandemic with nine 737-800 NG aircraft and recently added our 10th. Our ambition is to have 16 aircraft for the coming summer, and ultimately grow to 30, so the excitement for our whole team at Swoop is that after an almost two-year pause we can now get on the front foot and focused on growth.”

Looking ahead, Swoop is focused on securing its new aircraft for the summer, which will then further inform its route development plans. “We’re deep in that planning process right now,” Duncan added. “We hope to have 16 aircraft, so 60% growth from the 10 we have now, and that will bring a whole lot of new routes. First, we need to secure the aircraft and have firm dates around when they’ll be entering service, and then we’ll have more route announcements to come.”

bringing back destinations like Vegas, and adding new ones like Los Angeles, Nashville, Austin, etc. would be great, as well as expanding Florida flights to 7x weekly.

One can wish :shrug:

And if I'm going to keep wishing, can we get some regional flights to places like Chicago, DC, and New York? I would love to be able to grab a cheap flight from Hamilton to NYC.

When Pan Am was here in Hamilton back in the early 80's, my wife and I would do 3 or 4 day weekends in New York City. We would take in a couple of shows, site see and enjoy great restaurants. I miss those days. It was so easy from Hamilton.

I desperately need a break (on the verge of a burnout meltdown), and bringing back Las Vegas would be fantastic. I basically get the hotel for free, so I only need to pay for the flight.

I go to Vegas to relax, mostly hanging out by the pool. Plus, you get a lot of free stuff from Vegas (yes, free drinks, please), and everything is cheaper (even recreational marijuana). Plus, each time you go back, you get more free offers. Another tip, use Uber Eats, you can find tons of restaurants that offer zero fees. WAY cheaper than Florida.

Never been a fan of Vegas. If much prefer some cool cities like Portland, Denver, Pittsburgh, Boston and some warmer destinations. The resorts and tourist traps are meh for me.

The Vegas flights were pretty popular from YHM. I was actually surprised they didn’t bring it back this winter.

Swoop adds new maritime routes starting May 1, 2022.
I CALLED IT!

MONCTON starts May 6, 2022
May/June: Mon/Fri
July/August: Mon,Wed,Fri,Sat

CHARLOTTETOWN starts May 1, 2022
May/June: Mon/Thur
July/August: Mon,Thu,Fri,Sun

Toronto gets YYG, YQR, YXE in this update.

Looks like we will get another based aircraft, so I'd expect more routes to be announced soon?

YVG? That's some tiny runway off in the middle of nowhere in Alberta. Is that correct?

Whoops I meant YYG, the Y looked like a V 😂

2021 Numbers are out!

Passenger
2021: 250,019 (-24%)
2020: 329,193
--Pandemic--
2019: 955,373
2018: 725,630
2017: 599,146
2016: 333,368
2015: 313,839

Cargo
2021: 766,000,000 kg (+16%)
2020: 658,202,000 kg
2019: 532,235,000 kg
2018: 525,161,000 kg
2017: 499,211,000 kg
2016: 438,924,000 kg

I'm surprised the passenger numbers aren't a lot lower than that. Hopefully 2022 is a big rebound.

Freight is no surprise at all though. And that will continue to grow.

Speaking of cargo, this property is across the street from the airport and I believe it runs from the HWY 6 ramp to the KF Aerospace parking lot and Airport Road to HWY 6.

From Forge and Foster:
I cannot see anyone spending that amount of money on land without a plan for it.

http://www.hopewell.com/

There have been quite a few larger land transactions in the AEGD from large national industrial developers in the last 12 months, this isn't the first. There is going to be a LOT of industrial development in the next couple of years I expect, especially given the gold-rush level of space availability and cost pressures on the GTA industrial market that is making tenants desperate to grab basically any space they can get their hands on.

I've heard some developers are considering 3-level industrial warehouse "towers" in Toronto as land is in such short supply. Except of course for the AEGD, which is full of large, service ready industrial plots.. perfect for Hamilton's goals of expanding it's industrial tax base.

This sounds like the perfect type of industrial development we'd be putting on our industrial waterfront, which as far as I know has that kind of capacity for intensive heavy industrial use. Switching the area from manufacturing to simple warehousing might help catalyze some change in the east end/Stoney Creek to more palatable industrial uses. Although, I'm not too familiar with how much land 'stock' there is to start adding any warehousing space, assuming the big industries are all still there. Either way, we need to continue prioritizing absorbing as much of that regional demand as possible and putting it in the AEGD and anywhere else we have the room.

Stelco sold off most of their land and it's early in the process of getting redeveloped from my understanding, though given the harbour access I'm not sure whoever bought it will be thinking that and may just go for the easy money from distribution warehouses.