Hamilton 's airport managers don't expect any passenger growth next year. Tradeport CEO Richard Koroscil told councillors last week "that 2005 will be pretty flat". The numbers for 2004 are expected to be less than 700,000, down from 1.1 million last year. Two years ago, the city was anticipating hitting 4 million passengers in 2005 and 6 million by 2007.

Koroscil is still predicting that passenger volume will climb dramatically, but now the time frame is within the next seven years. "We very much see the opportunity for long-term growth and the opportunity to go to a 5 million passenger facility is there absolutely in our mind," Koroscil told the planning committee.

Cargo traffic at the airport this year will be "up a wee bit" to 95,000 tonnes, but that's still lower than 2002. The total has been stuck in that range since 1999 when it hit 93,000. When WestJet moved 60% of its flights out of Hamilton in January, Mayor DiIanni declared "Our airport has grown primarily because of its cargo business," and explained that "the passenger side is desirable, but it is essentially gravy."

Airport officials also warned last week that competition from Waterloo, London and Buffalo is heating up, and that a new airport in Pickering is on the horizon. "They have 15 full time staff working on the Pickering project right now, even though the airport doesn't exist," said Tradeport vice president Stewart Steeves. "That compares with 20 full time professional staff at Hamilton managing an airport which does exist."

That didn't dampen the enthusiasm of Glanbrook councillor Dave Mitchell who wore his airport t-shirt to the committee meeting. "I see the Hamilton International Airport as being an economic saviour for this city", Mitchell declared. He was even supportive of a proposed new highway connection across Glanbrook from the top of the Red Hill Expressway to the airport, although he predicted that "my phone will be ringing off the wall tomorrow about where that is going to go."

Flamborough councillor Dave Braden was less enthusiastic about the long-term prospects of the facility. He predicted an energy crisis will result in "dramatic change in the next five to ten years" and warned that it was "not going to be so good for airports."

"We want to have our eyes wide open to understand how this is going to play out," Braden declared. "But we need to be prepared and not be planning for the past."

The city officially identifies "the development of an aerotropolis [as] the number one strategic priority for economic development in Hamilton". Last year, it spent $8 million installing a second water pipe to the airport. Ancaster councillor Murray Ferguson asked what the expenditure had done for the airport "other than legalizing the pressure". Economic development head Neil Everson said it was " a little premature to answer that question" although he went on to say that "what it did is it gave us redundancy - something we didn't have before."

Last week's meeting was supposed to approve a new master plan for the airport, but that has been delayed until the new year. Instead, Tradeport officials just provided a verbal update. They explained that "it's important that we have approval from our Board before [the new master plan] goes to City Council for their approval".

The staff report is available at
http://www.city.hamilton.on.ca/Clerk/agendas-minutes-reports/
Planning-Economic-Development/2004/Oct20/
ECO04010HIA%20MASTER%20PLAN%2004.pdf.

The CATCH report on the meeting can be read on the CATCH website.