CATCH Articles:
Hamilton air flights continue decline
Dec 19, 2007
The number of aircraft flights in and out of Hamilton airport was 17.5 percent lower last month than in November 2006. The decline continues a long term trend that has seen Mount Hope’s flights drop by nearly a third in the last three years.
Statistics Canada reported on Monday that there were 4754 aircraft movements at Hamilton airport last month, more than 1000 fewer than the same month in 2006. More than two thirds of the decline was in local flights, but the number of long distance ones also fell by 7.8 percent (278 flights) over a year earlier (see table below).
And while Hamilton’s numbers dropped, the national average went in the opposite direction – climbing 13 percent. In fact, the averages at Canada’s 42 largest airports have increased every month in the last year.
In contrast Hamilton registered increases in only five of the past twelve months. The biggest gain was in August when Hamilton numbers rose 11.4 percent, a little more than twice the national gain that month. But in every other month in the last year, Hamilton has scored below the national averages, usually by a large amount.
Hamilton’s numbers also compare poorly to its closest competitor airports (see second table below). In November, London registered a 10.8 percent increase with 9281 flights. Kitchener-Waterloo airport dipped slightly by 0.8 percent with 8,139 flights. Both airports have far higher numbers of local flights – defined as ones which take off and return to the same airport. But both London and Waterloo also surpass Hamilton’s numbers for long distance flights.
The change over the last three years has been very similar. London’s flights have gone up 19 percent since November 2004, Waterloo’s have declined 2.6 percent, and Hamilton’s have plummeted 30.8 percent. That translates into over 2000 fewer aircraft movements at Mount Hope last month than there were in November 2004.
The picture looks brighter for Hamilton when only long distance flights are examined. Waterloo has fallen 15.7 percent while Hamilton is down 9.4 percent. London’s decline was 2.3 percent in the same three year period.
But all of them compare very poorly to the national averages which are up 8.8 percent over the November 2004 numbers, suggesting that the general Canadian growth in air transport is being accompanied by a long term decline in regional airports like Hamilton.
The global outlook for the airline sector dimmed this week. For the second time in six months the International Air Transport Association lowered its performance expectations for the sector in 2008.
Aviation Week cited “sustained high fuel prices and the economic slowdown brought on by the U.S. credit crisis [as] the main culprits” in the expected decline in airline profitability next year, noting that “fuel represents such a high percentage of their operating costs”.
The magazine expects oil prices to go down because of the American economic slowdown, but anticipates a $78 a barrel level - $12 higher than earlier anticipated.
full report here:
http://hamiltoncatch.org/view_article.php?id=216
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