Brian Iler commented that the recent Globe article on Porter focused far too much on "bums on seats."  There are many other issues about the Island Airport that impact on the community like noise, traffic, pollution, the use of the airport lands and safety, but still the success of Porter is an important question that could well determine the future of the Island Airport.

I think there is mounting evidence that the Porter flights to the United States are a failure.  A journalist recently few to Chicago and reported that there were very few paying passengers, and we have heard from passengers traveling to Newark that more than half the seats are empty.  Perhaps the strongest evidence of the failure of the U.S. routes is the recent announcement that Porter is going to increase the number of flights to Ottawa and Montreal.  That means they are being forced to reorganize their routes to reflect the lack of demand for U.S. flights.

We know that there is strong demand on the Toronto/Ottawa, Toronto/Montreal flights and we can expect that Porter is making money on these routes, but I believe it will be extremely difficult to establish profitable flights to U.S. destinations.

Look to history.  Both City Express and Jazz established a profitable business on the Toronto/Ottawa, Toronto/Montreal routes and they both flew to Newark but they could not get enough passengers to fly profitably anywhere else.  As both airlines began to contract, they cut the Newark flights and ended up just flying to Ottawa and Montreal.  I suspect the same thing will happen to Porter.

The difficulty that Porter is going to experience is that the company has ordered another 10 aircraft so their fleet will have 18 planes by the end of this year.  That is a lot of bums of seats that have to be filled, if the company is to be profitable and will have serious consequences for the company.

• Porter raised $115 million as equity investment before the company started flying over two years ago.  The investors will be getting anxious and want their money back.  An IPO is impossible in this economic climate.  How are the investors going to get their money back with a profit?
• The country is in the worst recession since the 1930s and economic analysts say there is no end in sight.  Recessions are very difficult for airlines because business travelers cut back on their travel and tourism is cut back.
• If the only profitable routes are Toronto/Ottawa/Montreal, then Porter has enormous overcapacity and will have to sell some of the new planes or cancel orders for new Q400s.
• Porter then will be reduced to a small regional airline. 

The cutbacks will lead to this question: is it reasonable to devote 215 acres of very valuable land to a regional airline servicing a small number of people?  That is a political question, but it seems to me that the answer is obvious.  The Island Airport must close and Porter either move to Pearson or shut down.

I grant you this is all hypothetical and based on slim evidence, but it is no more speculation than the talk we hear from Robert Deluce.  Somehow the public is expected to believe his claims that Porter is profitable.  "I don't want to gloat," he said in the recent Globe and Mail article, as he secretly gloated, but he has presented no evidence that his company is financially successful and his predictions that he will be able to make money on flights to American cities borders on fantasy.  One thing we do know.  He is not providing a vital service to the people of Toronto.  His company can operate out of Pearson as well as the Island Airport.

Meanwhile Porter continues to hold a monopoly on valuable public land, his planes create noise above the allowable limit, they spew out pollution, attract traffic into a residential community, and so on, and so on. 

Bill Freeman