On July 23, this blog carried an article praising the Toronto Port Authority for cutting down on planes that broke the airport curfew.

John Townsend responded the next day with a comment that pointed out the TPA should be congratulated for nothing.  He was right. 

On Sunday, August 3, the TPA allowed Porter Airlines flight POE 132 to arrive at the island airport after the curfew hour.  The TPA allowed the same thing to happen again last night, Wednesday, August 6.

What’s going on?

 It appears that the TPA has no intention of stopping curfew breaking flights, allowing recurrences within days.  Either it has no power to stop these after hour flights or it is turning a blind eye to them.  The TPA has given no evidence and no assurance that it is doing anything about them.

Porter Airlines does not seem to have a consistent policy about diverting these late arrivals to Pearson.  Flight POE 132 is on time only 25% of the time.  It has diverted to Pearson the same number of times.  In fact, 72% of the flights are late, very late, or excessively late according to flightstats.com.

Transport Canada doesn’t appear to be ready to do anything about the curfew breakers either.  Although Transport Canada is a signatory to the Tripartite Agreement that sets the airport’s hours of operation, it seems ready to allow its client, the port authority, to break its word without lifting a finger.

Transport Canada’s apparent position should come as no surprise.  On January 27, 1986, the Toronto Star, in an article titled ‘Cramped Islands airport shows strain Commercial flights jostle for space on busy runways’, reported that the transport department was developing a $20,000,000 plan to upgrade the airport.  Add another $35,000,000 from the bridge settlement and these people are in it for the long haul – curfew or no curfew.

Bob Kotyk