Buffeted by the region’s strong economy and prudent planning, Edmonton Airports has emerged as an oasis in an industry that continues to be hit by devastating blows.
SARS, the war in Iraq and the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks have left many airports reeling and seen airlines land on the critical care list quicker than the Concorde can fly. They have made a dent in the Edmonton region, but the damage has been minor.
Flights continue to be added to Edmonton International Airport, cargo volume grew by 11 per cent in 2002 despite overall industry volume decreases, and projections call for an end to two years of net losses with four years of positive returns.
“I don’t want to paint too rosy a picture, because this is still a tough time,” said Edmonton Airports president and CEO Scott Clements after the authority’s annual general meeting last week. “We lost five per cent of our business last year and we may not regain all of it in this go-forward year.”
Nevertheless, Clements has reason to be optimistic. Passenger numbers, which fell from 3.9 million in 2001 to 3.7 million last year, registered a 6.5-per-cent increase in the last quarter of 2002 compared to the same period in 2001.
Meanwhile, Continental Airlines just started daily non-stop service to Houston, Jetsgo is adding a daily non-stop to Toronto, Air Canada announced at the meeting that it’s reinstating its non-stop route to Montreal with continuing service to St. John’s, and Ottawa’s new carrier Zoom – in conjunction with Sunquest – is providing twice-weekly Boeing 767 service to London-Gatwick.
They join recent service additions from Air North to Whitehorse and Central Mountain Air’s return with new flights to Prince George, Fort St. John and Peace River. Northwest and United Express have both boosted capacity with additional flights. Charter service also expanded, including the arrival of HMY Airways.
“In 2001, we were the only airport to actually grow in passenger count. Last year, we grew in aircraft movements. We’re growing again this year, so I use the terminology that we’re a bit of an oasis in the midst of all of this uncertainty,” said Clements.
There was more good news for Edmonton Airports when Air Canada recently decided to release airport improvement fees it had collected on behalf of the airport authority, money it had threatened not to pay since moving into bankruptcy protection.
While Clements expects a leaner, improved Air Canada to emerge from the bankruptcy proceedings, he doesn’t foresee any service cuts for his airport.
“If we were going to see any reductions, they would have been announced already and we haven’t seen any. In fact, we’ve seen additions,” he said.
Why did Air Canada return the Montreal non-stop service? It’s simple, said Clements. “Even in their desperate condition, Air Canada decided they’re going to make more money by investing in Edmonton.”
The service was cancelled, noted Clements, because Air Canada thought it would make more money by routing Montreal-bound passengers through Toronto.
“Obviously that paradigm has changed and I think SARS may have had something to do with it.”
SARS has had little impact on the International, aside from delaying plans for a new airport hotel by about 12 to 18 months.
“We don’t have a lot of hub flow and we don’t have a lot of Asian flow. It has affected us but not like Toronto or Vancouver. And we’re not being complacent about it, we have our guard up.”
In addition, Edmonton Airports is working hard to develop year-round capacity to Europe, either Frankfurt or London, through Air Canada or its alliance partner Lufthansa.
Despite all these developments, Edmonton Airports lost $3.1 million last year, a figure Clements downplayed at the meeting.
Accounting writedowns related to the authority’s airport redevelopment project were the reason for the loss, he said. The figure was down from a $4.6-million loss in 2001.
The redevelopment project continues to move forward, with a new central hall linking the new south terminal to the original north facility scheduled to greet passengers in November.
A decision has yet to be made on whether to proceed with renovating the north building, which opened in 1963.
Despite the industry-wide doom and gloom, Clements does foresee a turnaround, but not before the end of 2005.
In the interim, he stresses, “we need to impress on the Government of Canada right now that it is time to stop taking money away from an industry that is sick. They have to do something for the industry other than hurt (it). “Stop diverting revenue from Air Canada and WestJet and airport authorities to pay for other things. Let that revenue be used by the industry to help it support itself.”
