Fredericton-Saint John Combined Airport

[Pugsley]

[Pugsley]

[Pugsley]

Today I thought I'd post two of the pages around the military transportation hub. This was a critical piece of my original concept, primarily to justify federal funding into such a project. With the country behind on its NATO commitment spending-wise, the development of an air base for joint-forces training at nearby CFB Gagetown made sense to me as a creative solution.

While the prior image might be hard to see, there zone includes a corridor that goes under the north-south roadways to securely link the air base to the CFB Gagetown lands. My thought was that this new southern base, working as a transportation hub and not replacing the base in Oromocto, would serve inbound and outbound troops from all NATO allies coming for training.

The funding for such a transportation hub would not only allow Canada to meet its military spending requirements, it would also pay for some of the critical assets (runways, control towers, taxiways, etc) which would also support the new commercial and freight aviation activity.

Enjoy!

[Pugsley]

[Pugsley]

[EnvisionSaintJohn]

Originally Posted by Pugsley

Hopefully some of the future uploads addresss this. Stay tuned.

Never thought I’d hear NATO mentioned regarding a shared airport proposal for Fredericton and Saint John, but there it is. It’s a great idea consider how large the footprint of CFB Gagetown is and how under utilized so much of that footprint is.

If we do indeed see PP’s form the next government, the feds might take this idea a lot more seriously and give it the credit it deserves compared to the average cynics here on the Atlantic Canada Skyscraperspage.com. If we are to try and fulfil our NATO obligations that have been sorely under target for years now, this idea could certainly help be a part of fulfilling those obligations.

___

As for what I mentioned before… do you think YFC and YSJ could be transformed into economically viable cargo focussed airports with some room for general aviation and private charter flights?

Moreover, I wonder if there would be opportunities for private hangers for those who could afford them. One of my favourite YouTubers, “Hoovies Garage” has a private hanger at a private airport outside of Wichita, Kansas, with an entire living space inside the hanger. I think there’s quite a lot of people in the Saint John Region who are wealthy enough to be interested to invest in such a set up at a reimagined YSJ or YFC.

• Video Link

The tour of the hanger starts around the 11:10 mark. He claims the entire hanger and 3 bedroom living quarters was built for under a million USD… which is a quite a tremendous value and highly marketable to the right demographic.


Just an aside though I’m mainly just interested if YFC and YSJ could be transformed into viable cargo focussed airports should the combined Fredericton Saint John Airport become reality one day, as the tens of millions already invested in YFC and YSJ seem to the be main hangup people have regarding this great idea.

The only thing I’d change is the name. I think something like New Brunswick Capital Region Airport would be better than Turnbull. YNB is already taken, unfortunately, but my reasoning is that people could simply search for “New Brunswick”, when looking up flights. (Or Fredericton and Saint John). New Brunswick, New Jersey doesn’t have an airport, so I don’t think there would be anywhere near the naming confusion that currently exists with Saint John and St. John’s

Hope this idea could become reality one day, it would be such a positive development for both the Saint John and Fredericton regions, and New Brunswick as a whole. The type of big thinking we’ve been sorely lacking for decades.

[Ozabald]

Originally Posted by EnvisionSaintJohn

Never thought I’d hear NATO mentioned regarding a shared airport proposal for Fredericton and Saint John, but there it is. It’s a great idea consider how large the footprint of CFB Gagetown is and how under utilized so much of that footprint is.

If we do indeed see PP’s form the next government, the feds might take this idea a lot more seriously and give it the credit it deserves compared to the average cynics here on the Atlantic Canada Skyscraperspage.com. If we are to try and fulfil our NATO obligations that have been sorely under target for years now, this idea could certainly help be a part of fulfilling those obligations.

___

As for what I mentioned before… do you think YFC and YSJ could be transformed into economically viable cargo focussed airports with some room for general aviation and private charter flights?

Moreover, I wonder if there would be opportunities for private hangers for those who could afford them. One of my favourite YouTubers, “Hoovies Garage” has a private hanger at a private airport outside of Wichita, Kansas, with an entire living space inside the hanger. I think there’s quite a lot of people in the Saint John Region who are wealthy enough to be interested to invest in such a set up at a reimagined YSJ or YFC.

• Video Link

The tour of the hanger starts around the 11:10 mark. He claims the entire hanger and 3 bedroom living quarters was built for under a million USD… which is a quite a tremendous value and highly marketable to the right demographic.


Just an aside though I’m mainly just interested if YFC and YSJ could be transformed into viable cargo focussed airports should the combined Fredericton Saint John Airport become reality one day, as the tens of millions already invested in YFC and YSJ seem to the be main hangup people have regarding this great idea.

The only thing I’d change is the name. I think something like New Brunswick Capital Region Airport would be better than Turnbull. YNB is already taken, unfortunately, but my reasoning is that people could simply search for “New Brunswick”, when looking up flights. (Or Fredericton and Saint John). New Brunswick, New Jersey doesn’t have an airport, so I don’t think there would be anywhere near the naming confusion that currently exists with Saint John and St. John’s

Hope this idea could become reality one day, it would be such a positive development for both the Saint John and Fredericton regions, and New Brunswick as a whole. The type of big thinking we’ve been sorely lacking for decades.

Not sure why you think there's such confusion between Saint John and St. John's. It doesn't happen as much as you think.

Using YYT as an example to justify the new NB Regional Airport, it would make more sense for a YYT passenger to connect through YHZ to EWR than through NB Regional for a variety of reasons such as more flight options, pre-clearance, etc.; plus YYT is working hard to re-establish the YYT-EWR flight it had with United. If anything, a YYT-YQM flight be a better option for YYT.

[EnvisionSaintJohn]

Originally Posted by Ozabald

Not sure why you think there's such confusion between Saint John and St. John's. It doesn't happen as much as you think.

Using YYT as an example to justify the new NB Regional Airport, it would make more sense for a YYT passenger to connect through YHZ to EWR than through NB Regional for a variety of reasons such as more flight options, pre-clearance, etc.; plus YYT is working hard to re-establish the YYT-EWR flight it had with United. If anything, a YYT-YQM flight be a better option for YYT.

I’m not sure why you keep on saying this. I don’t think you’ve been outside of Atlantic very much or talked to many people from outside the region if you don’t think the two cities get confused often, because they absolutely do get confused quite often by people from outside the region of Atlantic Canada, and can you blame them? Maybe google “Saint John and St. John’s” and get back to me in another thread, as the SJ/SJ’s confusion was a pretty minuscule part of my comment you’re replying to here

As for what’s better for St. John’s, NFLD airport… that has next to nothing to do with the topic of this thread. Moreover, it surely wouldn’t be a regional airport. It would be the newest, and biggest international airport in the province serving both the capital and the second largest city in NB, which have combined metro population significantly larger than that of Metro Moncton.

This thread is about how a combined airport would be an improvement for Saint John, NB and Fredericton, NB… and not just from a better flights perspective, but how it could also impact urban growth and development trajectories between the two cities. Perhaps your comment here would be better suited for the Atlantic Canada Airport thread or the Atlantic Canada Stats thread. Appreciate your response, nonetheless.

[Pugsley]

Hi there,

Took a bit of a break but back at trying to update the sections from the original report. Remember, this was done in 1995/96. So, there is a paper copy that is in pretty bad shape I am working off and none of the original computer models from school. So I've had to work backwards, trying to reverse-engineer some of the numbers in the original - which you need to remember... NB was a very different place in 1996, so the numbers at the time were very different.

Anyhow....

These slides are about the design concept for both the commercial & entertainment area of the Aerotropolis (clearly updated with new brands and options) as well as the cluster-model for residential development along the corridor. Again, the residential has been updated with NEW examples and housing styles which at the time, were not piloted or established yet.

The last two slides are where the main models (i.e. what the prof wanted...) came into play and was one of the bigger theories being tested - that an Aerotropolis would adjust growth towards it and alter sprawl in both cities. I lost many of the back-up notes and calculations on this but I was able to re-draw some of the images as well as re-design and update the charts. I also used more relevant community names and attempted to update the information based on new CMA data - which in 1996, there was only one! LOL

Anyhow, enjoy. Next update will be on the commercial airport terminal itself, followed by the logistics hub.

Coming soon!

[Pugsley]

[Pugsley]

[Pugsley]

[Pugsley]

[Pugsley]

[Pugsley]

Hello Again!

I am back with the next instalment...this time focused on the MAIN TERMINAL and COMMERCIAL AVIATION strategy.

When I did this originally, the airlines that served Fredericton and Saint John were very different. So were the airports themselves. I re-visited some of the content and also had to update some of the concepts given this was written BEFORE 9-11. If you can believe that.

Anyway, these pages explain a crucial part of the study assignment - overcoming the challenges of the proposed development through creative design and strategic differentiation. Given Fredericton and Saint John on their own could not build something akin to a Dallas-Fort Worth Airport or a Heathrow given the population, I had to argue or show a means by which the infrastructure could be built but support a broader commercial need beyond the local travel market.

The answer to this was focussing on the HUB model but more specifically...a hub for airline alliances. This had never been discussed before as most airline alliances create hubs around their larger airline partners (EX: Toronto Pearson and Chicago O'Hare for Star Alliance, or Atlanta for SkyTeam). The idea was to purpose-build the terminal to support each major alliance, not a specific airline. As such, alliances airlines could have an airport that focused on all of their partners seeking a cost-effective alternative to the more expensive airports in larger cities, and suitable for Cross-Atlantic travel using single-aisle aircraft.

Since then, Heathrow built the Queen's Terminal, which is really a dedicated terminal for Star Alliance. While British Airways (One World) is the dominant airline at Heathrow, the Queen's terminal acts as an alliance hub for the Star Alliance, connecting the partner airlines with purpose-built amenities. This was what I proposed for the new Turnbull International, but obviously at a much smaller scale.

This approach would achieve two goals: 1) Build capacity for attracting airlines seeking more profitable hubs to meet the needs of a broader number of travellers interested in lower European airfares, and 2) Increase the number of direct flights from the region to support economic growth. While local passenger counts would likely only be 15-20% of total passengers served, the connecting passengers would be the real moneymakers for the airport, and the airlines.

Anyhow, I've taken the original and updated it, but many of the principle ideas remain.

[Pugsley]

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