Quote:
Originally Posted by MonctonRad
Agree 100%.
This was apparently Pugsley's thesis, and, to my eye, he did a bang up job on the presentation. He should be congratulated.
In the real world though, the ship has already sailed. Both SJ and Freddy have their airports, and there is no way they will give them up. There is too much civic pride. There is also no political will on the provincial level either. Such a sea change would be well over a billion dollars, and I'm sure there would be no interest in paying for this.
As you say, if we could recreate a tabula rasa, and start over, in a perfect world, under modern circumstances, a combined SJ/Freddy airport would make a lot of sense. But, in the real world, the die has been cast decades ago, and no one would champion this project now.
It is a great thought experiment though!
|
Absolutely, big ups to Pugsley for putting together this proposal, it well thought out, highly detailed, and still as relevant in 2024 as it was when they wrote it back in 1996.
Like I said above, MonctonRad, this is such a typical New Brunswick attitude of not seeing the forest through the trees. The notion that the tens of millions invested in YSJ and YFC means “the ship has sailed” is such a short sighted way of looking at it. Yeah, you’ll likely be dead or an exceptionally old man before a proposal like this actually ever became reality, but we’re talking about an idea with potential multi billion dollar potential for the NB economy, but you think there’s no political will at the provincial level for such transformational ideas? I beg to differ… a penny pincher, deficit hawk like Higgs might not ever support such a great idea, but let’s not speak for Susan Holt’s Liberals quite yet… she is from Fredericton, and as crazy as this sounds, ( as I just looked it up), there hasn’t been a premier representing anywhere close to Fredericton area since 1911, and even crazier… there’s never been a premier directly representing the city of Fredericton, in the history of NB, ever!
(Look at the list of premiers and take note of their ridings)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o..._New_Brunswick
As for the civic pride piece… what pride is there in the Fredericton and Saint John airports? They are both really small, really inadequate airports, especially YSJ. There’s absolutely nothing to be proud about with either airport, and it speaks volumes that people from both Saint John and Fredericton will often go to Moncton for cheaper flights, in spite of the extra costs involving driving there and dealing with parking fees. Of course you love this
as you’re very psyched on Moncton, but those of us in Saint John and Fredericton don’t love this at all. The combined CMA populations of Saint John and Fredericton which would be directly served by this airport far outweighs Greater Moncton, and will continue to outweigh the population of Greater Moncton for the foreseeable future.
No matter how many tired cliches you decide to throw out there about ships having sailed, dies being cast, or clean slates, they don’t change the fact that this is an idea with multi billion dollar economic potential, which you’re getting hung up about the tens of millions recently invested in YFC and YSJ, which wouldn’t all go to waste anyways. There’s far greater examples of waste found within the government of NB or federal government than what this proposal would cost tax payers over the long term, but I’ll leave those examples for the politics thread.
Pugsley’s proposal isn’t perfect… no proposal is, but at least it’s a viable long term strategy that gets at the root of a problem that impacts both Fredericton and Saint John, that problem being that both cities are currently being served by inadequately small airports that simply cannot compete with YQM, let a lone YHZ. The provinces of NB and NS are actually quite comparable demographically, yet, Halifax Stanfield alone serves over 4 million passengers a year, while all of NB’s airports combined don’t even serve 1.5 million passengers combined, iirc, though please correct me if that number is off.
Probably the thing I disagree with the most regarding this proposal is the name. Turnbull Airport isn’t a great name, imo. Yeah, I understand Turnbull was an aviation pioneer and all that, and history is great, but I think a statue or plaque honouring him would suffice. New Brunswick International Airport or even New Brunswick Capital Region International Airport are far more descriptive names, and directly get at the civic pride piece you brought up. Ultimately, all that really matter is the airport code. While, YNB is unfortunately taken, it’s not mandatory that the airport code start with Y, is it? If so YFS and YSF could probably be negotiated away from the positively tiny airports that currently use them today in the NWT, and SK. If Y isn’t mandatory, there’s other airport codes that could be used that feature NB in the code, and that’s really what matters the most, imo.
Cities take enormous pride in their airport codes, and while YSJ is one of the best in the entire country in that regard, our airport is complete crap, and nothing to be proud about
(no offence to the crew at YSJ who do the best they can with a very limited budget and resources.) It’s also well known that Saint John and Fredericton have a bit of a competitive rivalry to say the least, and residents of each city have a lot of stereotypes that they hold about the other city, to the point where you might say they don’t really get a long, or like each other. Sharing an airport code and airport for that matter, could go a long way in terms of bridging that divide, resentment, and negative stereotypes between the two cities, and ultimately give both cities something to absolutely be proud of, together.
Again, it’s an idea with multi billion dollar potential, i thinks it’s extremely short sighted to not at least devote further study to the idea. The tens of millions already invested in YSJ and YFC wouldn’t necessarily be wasted, as many of those passenger focussed investments could be repurposed for the combined airport, while the runway and hangar space would remain useful for YSJ and YFC’s cargo operations and private aviation, which would still operate out of the airport. I’m not surprised you’re opposed to the idea since it wouldn’t be one that directly benefits Moncton, but if you think about it, there’s probably a lot of indirect way it would impact Moncton, the most obvious of which, imo, being that it would increase competition, which should eventually mean more competitive pricing, and a greater variety of routes between both airports. Too often in politics, short term priorities designed to keep a ruling party in power are prioritized over long term goals that would benefit the long term future. Just for once, I’d like to see New Brunswickers support the latter, and believe in the power of big ideas that bring about positive change.
No great business or state ever got anywhere without taking risks… and imo, this combined airport idea is absolutely an idea worth the risk, and at the very least, is worth further study.