Once again the style mavens of the Toronto media are falling all over themselves praising Porter Air. The latest exercise in puffery is "Are You a Porter Person?", a piece by Toronto Star fashion editor David Graham that reads like it was written by Porter's PR department. According to Graham, the Toronto Island-based airline has "stolen the hearts of style-conscious passengers" with its "enormous cool factor". He even quotes one enthusiast who pronounces the airline "adorable".

Cool-branding the company has been a key part of owner Robert Deluce's marketing strategy from the beginning, and it's certainly paid off in terms of media coverage: Both the Star and the Globe and Mail ran splashy lifestyle stories about Porter's inaugural flight to Newark last spring, for instance. But how much that vaunted "cool factor" is translating into a viable business is a big question mark. With spiralling fuel costs and a tanking economy, it takes more than a handful of fashionistas to keep an airline afloat these days. In recent interviews Deluce has exuded much bravado about the company's "profitability" but then, the guys at Enron insisted that everything was hunky-dory right up until the final moments of the company's fabled collapse. Those "Porter People" in Graham's article better enjoy their free lattes and plush Swiss carpeting while they still can.

Kathleen McDonnell