Airport, airline officials react to WestJet CEO’s comments about one major N.B. airport
CTV
Airport officials disagree with idea of one centralized airport in New Brunswick.
From an airline perspective, WestJet CEO Alexis von Honesbroech says having three major airports all within two hours of one another isn’t helping land more flights.
“Right now you are splitting the traffic across three different airports, and I understand why the cities want to have their own airport, but this also means that the demand is subcritical in all three of them to many destinations,” von Honesbroech told CTV News Atlantic lead anchor Todd Battis in a sit down interview on Wednesday during a visit to Atlantic Canada. “Consolidating them all into one would certainly improve the connectivity for New Brunswick. On the other hand I fully understand why this is not happening at this point in time, but in the long run maybe there is an opportunity.”
The discussion of the need for three major airports in the province (located in Saint John, Fredericton, and Moncton) is nothing new to New Brunswickers.
Some of the province’s airports offer no more than a handful of flights per day. In comparison, Halifax Stanfield International Airport (the region’s largest airport) is slated to see roughly 100 flights arriving and departing each day this week.
Former Air Canada COO Duncan Dee agrees with the WestJet CEO, and says slicing New Brunswick’s small market across multiple airports isn’t helping attract airlines.
“The only time of year that any of those airports make sense on their own is probably the two, maybe three months in the summer peak when virtually every flight that is operated in Canada on the domestic market is full,” Dee believes.
Dee also points out the nation’s larger airlines no longer fly the small turbo prop aircrafts New Brunswickers used to fly more regularly.
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