YEG - Edmonton Int Airport

[Riise]

Originally Posted by KrisYYC

This is why I avoid the cheap ass charters. They fold with little to no warning, stranding thousands.

But not everyone can afford to fly with the big boys...

[tuffyy]

Hardly surprised by the news of ZOOM.

They still have debts with the EAA aswell.

In many cases charters are the way to go simply because of pricing for some all inclusives, they cant be beat.

Reputable charter companies who have been in the buisness for a long time such as the Transat group and Skyservice.

Sunwing also seems to be stable aswell.

[KrisYYC]

I guess they owe CAA $400,000.

[KrisYYC]

Originally Posted by Riise

But not everyone can afford to fly with the big boys...

I never understood this. Everytime I've gone overseas I've checked the fares on the charters. The best I've seen was maybe $300 cheaper than the big boys for a round trip ticket. But only a choice of a few flights per week, no points, and often a stop in YVR. If $300 is going to make or break somebody's trip to Europe then they probably shouldn't be traveling to Europe in the first place, or at least save up some more money.

[Riise]

Originally Posted by KrisYYC

If $300 is going to make or break somebody's trip to Europe then they probably shouldn't be traveling to Europe in the first place, or at least save up some more money.

For a backpacker, three bills is a lot and could be a week's accommodation in a hostel. $300 may not be make-or-break for you and I, but I know that I'm better off than quite a few people out there who deserve to go to Europe just as much, if not more, than myself.

[alexis]

Originally Posted by feepa

Why not just use heavy rail from Grandin to the airport? It wouldn't cost all that much to build the extra infrastructure, just need to negotiate something with CP

Grandin/Government Center <-> Strathcona < -> 34 ave < -> Nisku < - > Airport

Well living near the Heritage stop, I can tell you the next leg south of the proposed extension is hitting serious problems from the residents..it appears a number of them do not want it above ground going as far as the Anthony Hendy..daft really as there's very few houses actually by the road on this section

[alexis]

Hi,

For those that may be interested, C-FDND DHC-8 of Air Inuit arrived in Edmonton Intl as AIE852 this afternoon.

Turns out it had quite a routing, all today
YUL-YGK-YQA-YQT-YWG-YXE-YEX-YXX
Not sure if Abbotsford is the last stop or not.

Don't suppose anyone has any idea what it's doing travelling across country?

[LO 044]

Originally Posted by alexis

Well living near the Heritage stop, I can tell you the next leg south of the proposed extension is hitting serious problems from the residents..it appears a number of them do not want it above ground going as far as the Anthony Hendy..daft really as there's very few houses actually by the road on this section

I don't know how anyone can say there are "few" houses in the areas of Macewan, Rutherford, Blackburne, Richford, Callaghan and Blackmud Creek. The Allard area between 25 Avenue SW and 41 Avenue SW (city limits) is being constructed next year. I would say that's a decent amount of development.

This is typical Edmonton "not in my back yard" attitude. But when the city has to fork over millions of dollars to expropriate land along 114 Street for the LRT, everyone bitches about how expensive the construction costs are for the LRT.

Once you get the LRT to 41 Avenue SW (city limits) then all you need is bus service. Good luck trying to deal with the county of Leduc for right-of-way to the airport

[Coldrsx]

^it will happen...leduc or not.

[CMD UW]

Originally Posted by LO 044

I don't know how anyone can say there are "few" houses in the areas of Macewan, Rutherford, Blackburne, Richford, Callaghan and Blackmud Creek. The Allard area between 25 Avenue SW and 41 Avenue SW (city limits) is being constructed next year. I would say that's a decent amount of development.

This is typical Edmonton "not in my back yard" attitude. But when the city has to fork over millions of dollars to expropriate land along 114 Street for the LRT, everyone bitches about how expensive the construction costs are for the LRT.

Once you get the LRT to 41 Avenue SW (city limits) then all you need is bus service. Good luck trying to deal with the county of Leduc for right-of-way to the airport

The majority of the concerns are coming from the residents in the Twin Brooks neighbourhood.

The proposed south extension from Century Park is now planned to follow 111 Street south to AHD, turn westbound to 127 Street and head south along the westside of 127 Street. It will then travel through the planned Heritage Valley Town Centre and connect back south along the James Mowatt Trail r/w. There aren't many residents that will be impacted by this other than proximity in some cases. The only major neighbourhoods to be affected are Twin Brooks and Rutherford (minimal).

Allard won't be impacted by the extension at all.

[LO 044]

There is no doubt that the routing along 111 Street will impact some residents but that's just reality. Which other way did those residents expect the LRT route to continue when the decision to extend the LRT to Heritage was made? All i know is that i use the LRT daily and there is no comparison of the LRT to a bus. The LRT is 10x better than the bus and people on the southside will realize that when the last leg to Heritage is opened.

We are getting a bit off topic here but in the end, the LRT will be great when it reaches Heritage Valley Town Centre. At that point bus service to/from the airport will be even more viable if the LRT isn't extended further.

[JAH]

Originally Posted by CMD UW

The majority of the concerns are coming from the residents in the Twin Brooks neighbourhood.

The proposed south extension from Century Park is now planned to follow 111 Street south to AHD, turn westbound to 127 Street and head south along the westside of 127 Street. It will then travel through the planned Heritage Valley Town Centre and connect back south along the James Mowatt Trail r/w. There aren't many residents that will be impacted by this other than proximity in some cases. The only major neighbourhoods to be affected are Twin Brooks and Rutherford (minimal).

Allard won't be impacted by the extension at all.

I think the MacEwan neighbourhood would be more affected than Rutherford since it backs right on to AHD. Actually my backyard faces AHD and would be one of the houses directly impacted by this extension lol. Oh well, you're still not gonna see me become a NIMBY!

Do you know if the LRT extension would run along the north or south side of AHD after 111st? I'm guessing it would be the southside of AHD (MacEwan) rather than the northside of AHD (Twin Brooks) because of the existing power lines that run along there?

[rapid_business]

Northerners declare airport essential
City Centre facility provides crucial medical service to remote areas, they say
Gordon Kent, The Edmonton Journal
Published: 3:00 am

EDMONTON - Northern mayors and aboriginal leaders fought back Tuesday against any proposal to close the City Centre Airport and turn the area into a major new community.
Many of the 30 speakers at a public hearing argued service at the downtown airport should be increased, not eliminated, because the facility is so important to link businesses, hospitals and governments across Alberta.
"The City Centre Airport, in our opinion, is Edmonton's undeveloped gem," Bonnyville mayor and former provincial cabinet minister Ernie Isley said. "We encourage you to use it, not lose it."

He and others insisted that as the capital, Edmonton has a responsibility to consider the needs of other Albertans for easy access to provincial officials when it looks at the Muni's future.

"It appears to us that you're saying you know what we need, and this appears to be paternalistic," Peace River town Coun. Don Good said.
One concern expressed repeatedly was that eliminating the downtown runways would create dangerous delays for patients being flown to Edmonton for emergency hospital treatment.

Dale Monoghan, chief operating officer for Air Mikisew and other companies owned by the Mikisew Cree First Nation, said it takes about 30 minutes longer for people to reach hospital when they land at the Edmonton International Airport rather than the Muni. His company does three or four medevac trips a day from Fort McMurray to Edmonton, in addition to scheduled passenger flights, he said.

They plan to take legal action involving the federal and provincial governments if the Muni is closed, claiming this would infringe on their treaty right to receive transportation to health care, he said.
While he doesn't expect senior levels of government to keep the airport open, they would have to find a way to maintain the treaty, he said."It's the right of Edmonton to determine the future of the airport, but it's also the right of the federal government to uphold constitutionally guaranteed services," he later told reporters.

City councillors have been considering what to do with the 217-hectare site since a June report estimated the land could be sold for a profit of about $500 million, providing homes for 32,000 residents and reducing urban sprawl.

But several presentations cast doubt on the amount of money to be made. A consultant's report prepared for the Kingsway Business Association said the move could put in jeopardy 2,280 jobs linked to the airport that produce $104 million in wages. The value of the land has also dropped as the local real estate market sagged, the report says. "The best use of downtown Edmonton airport land is as an airport," said association co-chair Paul Gervais.

There were also concerns about the cost of removing spilled fuel and other contamination that has accumulated over the facility's 82-year history, despite a city report based on 29 environmental assessments that concludes no significant remediation is expected.

Edmonton Airports Authority president Reg Millay said the cleanup bills for two American downtown airports developed for housing in the last nine years were $29 million and $55 million.

One of the few presentations to push for closing the airport came from students at NAIT, who see the property as the best place for the school's much-needed expansion.

The hearing continues today.

from here

[S_B_Russell]

City Centre Airport on hot seat

By Graham Hicks


DECISION MUST BE MADE

Let the debate over the City Centre Airport begin.

Much depends on city council's final decision. Shut her down. Or keep her open.

There are many issues - LRT extension, NAIT expansion, regional planning, the shape of this city to come and much, much more.

Let us know by June of 2009, says city administration, which way you wanna go. One way or the other, planning has to start.

TRENDY PLANNING

So far, "shut her down" has better traction than "keep her open."

Current urban planning trends are all about going "up" instead of "out." It's about in-fill instead of sprawl, densification, walkable urban villages and leaving the car in the garage. The airport is a nice chunk of land to do all that on.

NAIT would rather expand on neighbouring airport land than build a new campus in the deep south. (It would probably like to do both.)

Height restrictions downtown, due to airport use, are under siege.

Everybody - city planners, politicians and developers - wants to go up. Skinny high-rises are all the rage.

CRASH LANDINGS

Seriously overlooked is the safety issue.

It's a miracle that nobody (besides pilots) has been killed in City Centre Airport flying mishaps.

In 1981, a plane flew into the Royal Alex hospital when the pilot lost consciousness. Had the leaking fuel ignited ...

In the late '90s, a Cessna 340 hit an abandoned gas station and burst into flames due to engine failure. Nobody was hurt ...

A plane once crashed on a nearby soccer field when it ran out of fuel. No kids were playing.

Safety issues have forced the closures of many city-surrounded airports where there's no other choice.

We have choice.

POINT COUNTERPOINT

For every keep-her-open point there's a strong counterpoint.

Point: Keep it open as a useful general aviation airport.

Counterpoint: Airplanes and aviation services could easily move to two small airports northwest and northeast of the city - the Villeneuve Airport (west of St. Albert) and the Josephburg Airport (east of Fort Saskatchewan), with relatively inexpensive upgrades, could substitute for the City Centre Airport.

Both are 15 minutes from the city's perimeter, the same distance as the international from the southern boundary.

Point: Our northerly neighbours want scheduled City Centre Airport service for business convenience.

Counterpoint: If business guys can get to outlying commercial areas within 15 minutes from three surrounding airports, is the extra 15 minutes to downtown that big a deal?

By mid-2009 scheduled bus service will run between the international airport and downtown (see today's blog). One day, the LRT will be extended to the international airport. Patience, grasshopper.

Point: Where would the Edmonton Indy go?

Counterpoint: To the Edmonton international airport. Or Castrol Raceway.

Point: Kingsway Avenue business will suffer if the airport is closed.

Counterpoint: A new neighbourhood of 30,000 replaces airport customers.

Point: Longer ambulance drives for emergency patients arriving by airplane.

Counterpoint: Yes, this service would suffer. However, helicopters don't need runways.

Point: The City Centre Airport ground is too polluted for anything but runways.

Counterpoint: Tests indicate patches of ground pollution can be easily cleaned up. CFB Edmonton is built on the old air force base. Much of the "new" downtown is built on former CN/CP railway land.

We're all for a vetting of pro-airport arguments. But logic, urban land use, tax dollars and safety are a tough team to play against.

http://www.edmontonsun.com/News/Columnists/Hicks_Graham/2008/09/03/6643226.html

[Jasper and one o nin]

so, what is wrong with Leduc's hospital?

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by Jasper and one o nin

so, what is wrong with Leduc's hospital?

If your med-evac'ing people, its probably because of something fairly serious. All hospitals are not created equal, and most do not have the capacity to deal with insane amounts of trauma, or complicated internal injuries. In many difficult cases, Leduc's hospital likely only stabalizes injuries in the emergency room and preps for transport to one of the central hospitals in Edmonton.

While that is better than nothing, it is a lower standard of care than having a team of specialists ready at moments notice, since when you have so many beds it makes sense to have specialists on site at all hours of the day. (economies of scale).

Most of the other arguments are pretty weak really, these med-evac companies will need to buy helicopters with the range and speed needed, and hire different pilots but the effort isn't insurmountable. There are tones of qualified helicopter pilots.

[feepa]

treaty rights for transportation don't exactly say "Transportation to the muni via plane is the only way to transport"

Note quote is from Dale Monoghan, chief operating officer for Air Mikisew

Yah, you're not biased at all. You know you'd be out of business if you had to compete with a real airline at a real airport. Are you and your nothern communities prepare to pay the cost on Edmonton to keep the bloody thing open?

[IKAN104]

Fly the medivac planes to YEG then chopper to University Hospital rooftop. Simple.

If having a central airport for medivac was really critical then all major cities would have one. But they don't.

[CMD UW]

Originally Posted by Jasper and one o nin

so, what is wrong with Leduc's hospital?

It's not a major trauma facility. The two major medical facilities that serve Alberta north are the U of A and Royal Alex.

[Coldrsx]

Originally Posted by CMD UW

It's not a major trauma facility. The two major medical facilities that serve Alberta north are the U of A and Royal Alex.

bingo