Ontario government tries to take partial control of Toronto’s City airport; now the fun starts

Toronto's Billy Bishop Airport is one of a very small, select number of inner city STOLports (short take-off and landing) situated close to the centre of large cities and usually handling a large proportion of business travellers.

The other two main ones are London City Airport in the UK and São Paulo's Congonhas Airport in Brazil, which are both situated in comparably sized city regions.

Both of those airports have experienced a wide range of issues impacting on their ability to grow and prosper while constantly fighting a rearguard action again intense opposition to their presence.

Billy Bishop, which is the closest of all three airports to its respective downtown area, has not grown to the same degree and until fairly recently there has been no real ambition to do so. The route network comprises less than 20 destinations, all of them within Canada or the United States, and all operated by short range turboprop aircraft with limited capacity.

The airport's ownership and management, including the land it is built on, is convoluted, as is often the case in Canada, embracing a federal agency (the Ports Authority), the City of Toronto and the Federal Government.

Then the terminal is managed by a private consortium, Nieuport Aviation.

Missing from the equation is the provincial authority, Ontario, which is perhaps surprising given that the airport is located on an island in Lake Ontario.

But that is about to change. The Ontario government has lodged a Bill that would transfer the 20% equity of the City over to it.

Ontario, a Conservative government, believes the airport is underutilised (arguably accurately) and wants to extend the runway so that jet aircraft can operate and fly greater distances, a position taken by the Federal opposition leader several years ago.

But there is already growing opposition amongst not only the incumbent national and other political parties but local residents. Billy Bishop is but a stones' throw from heavily urbanised middle class housing areas.

This report compares and contrasts the three airports and argues that the Canadian politicians pushing for this expansion should look carefully at the experience in the UK and Brazil before progressing their scheme any further.