Porter Airlines, who last October launched air services from Toronto”s controversial downtown city airport to Ottawa, is to add Newark New York to its destinations. No launch date has been set but Porter says: ”we hope to get the new route up and running before the year”s end.” In December flights to Montreal-Trudeau Airport were added. These are now up to nine services week daily. Ottawa now has ten flights Monday to Friday with reduced service at the weekend.
The airline will launch summer service to Halifax via Montreal and Ottawa from Friday (29 June) until 4 September. Canada”s newest airline will provide a total of four daily Toronto ” Halifax return flights, with two via Ottawa and two via Montreal.
”Halifax presents an exciting opportunity for Porter. We will deliver some much-needed competition to this important Canadian market and do it in the style our passengers have come to appreciate,” said Porter Airlines president and CEO, Robert Deluce. ”Since our launch, we have done very well with business travel on the Toronto to Montreal and Ottawa routes. Halifax extends the business market while providing significant new leisure capacity. We will also be assessing the opportunity for year-round service.”
To accommodate the addition of Halifax, the Ottawa ” Toronto service will move to six daily return trips from its current ten, while Montreal ” Toronto will be adjusted to six from its current level of nine flights.
”This move reflects the traditional change in summer travel to an increased leisure focus,” said Deluce. ”The Toronto ” Montreal and Toronto ” Ottawa routes will return to their usual frequencies in the fall and continue to be key routes in the Porter network.”
All of Porter”s operations are flown by 70-seat Bombardier Q400 propjets with a 34” seat pitch.
Porter said it soon would be able to "offer true competition and superior service on a number of US routes." It plans to launch the Toronto ” Newark service "later this year and not later than the early part of 2008," and eventually intends to serve as many as nine US destinations including Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and. Washington.
Toronto City Airport is on an island less than two miles from the city centre, and dates back to the 1930s. It has a history of failed carriers but the combination of Porter, with its major financial backing, and locally built Bombardier aircraft seems to be working in spite of antagonism by a minority island residents and environmentalists opposing the whole concept. Whilst a simple bridge is still not possible, an innovative state-of-the-art ferry links the airport to the mainland (a 120m two-minute journey), passengers using a new purpose-built terminal.