Region of Waterloo International Airport - YKF

[panamaniac]

Is there some reason that is preventing Hamilton from picking up all this traffic? Overall it is much closer and more convenient to most of Toronto than Bresleau

I believe I saw recently that Hamilton is the fastest growing airport in Canada, in terms of growth in the number of passengers (as a percentage).

[Viewfromthe42]

If you aren't in Hamilton, Oakville, or Burlington, Breslau is as close or closer than Hamilton's airport. That's still a larger population than Waterloo Region, less so if you consider London (who gets more flights than we do) as well, but from a marketing standpoint, I bet you someone from Barrie could more easily imagine themselves coming down to fly from Hamilton compared to Kitchener, even though we're much closer. Once you add in economies of scale, the tipping that's already happening towards Hamilton gives me almost no confidence that we will see more than 2 destinations out of YKF over the next 10-20 years.

[tomh009]

However, a decent transportation connection between YYZ and YKF (read: high-speed or at least respectable-speed rail) could change that calculation.

[SammyOES]

I think YKF really suffers from being a really good option for an airport - but not the best option given the current situation. I also don't see a lot changing that would let it gain a lot more regular flights, except maybe a really strong Go system. But even then, that feels like it might just make it easier for people in this area get to Pearson.

Edit: You beat me Tom!

[tomh009]

GTAA's logic is that as they start to approach capacity at YYZ, they would start shifting regional feeder flights (say, USB, YQT or YOW) to the smaller airports, and connect long-haul passengers to those airports using fast rail connections.

It might work. It doesn't really work in London, because there are no decent rail connections from LHR to LGW, LTN, STN or even LCY, and the main motorways are massively congested.

[SammyOES]

Ah, I see. I'm skeptical of that idea because it would involve something like 3 transfers at best (ykf->local train station->Pearson area train station?->Pearson airport). Without really steady traffic those transfer/waits could be quite long and it would require passengers to leave really long windows between flights.

It usually takes me over an hour to get from Newark Airport to New York Penn Station w/o a car even at peak times and where they've got relatively good train routes set up. If I land at an off-peak time it can be well over 90 minutes because regional rail just doesn't run that often.

[danbrotherston]

"Very little like parking and roads":

"bigger aircrafts on average" = (higher capacity) transit
"improvements in air traffic / ground control technology," = intersection improvements/optimizations
"moving some traffic earlier / later in the day" = congestion pricing to shift traffic away from peak hour.

Economically it's very similar to roads, with the same constraints, and solutions.

And yes, runways and gates are priced, I'm not sure if they're priced more at peak times however.  And you're right, it's much less of a populist issue, which is why the solutions proposed by SammyOES are much more feasible for airports than for roads.

eyeroll, jesus

 I'm sorry, did you have something to contribute?

[danbrotherston]

"Very little like parking and roads":

"bigger aircrafts on average" = (higher capacity) transit
"improvements in air traffic / ground control technology," = intersection improvements/optimizations
"moving some traffic earlier / later in the day" = congestion pricing to shift traffic away from peak hour.

Economically it's very similar to roads, with the same constraints, and solutions.

And yes, runways and gates are priced, I'm not sure if they're priced more at peak times however.  And you're right, it's much less of a populist issue, which is why the solutions proposed by SammyOES are much more feasible for airports than for roads.

I mean, sure, if you boil it down to that level they're very similar.  But so is sewage treatment.  And internet bandwidth.  And everything else even remotely related to capacity.

But they're clearly not at all the same.  The social need is very different.  Our ambulances / fire trucks / police cars / school buses don't need airports or runways.  Every single job and business in this country depends on a local transportation network and only a subset of jobs also depend on airports.  Airports/planes are by their very nature point-to-point, something that isn't true for local transportation that needs to connect everywhere people live to everywhere they work.  We can control the capacity of airports to a very fine grained degree at the gate and flight level - something thats not at all possible for roads.  And we could go on and on.

Even the idea that the "solutions" I mentioned are feasible because airports are less of a populist issue is backwards.  It's not a populist issue because airports don't play the same role that local transportation networks play.  

Anyway, this feels like it boils down to the same old issue I have with you and your road views.  It seems clear to me you have a very simplistic/naive view of the benefits of roads and how they impact society.  So I'll leave it at this and try to focus just on the airport itself in this thread.

First, I don't think it's fair to make your points, and then declare the conversation over.

Because you do make some very good points.  It is also similar to other issues of capacity, like hydro for example, which has, congestion pricing.

I'm not sure what you mean we can control airport capacity, but not vehicle capacity.  Airports function as terminals in the air transportation system, and we have near 100% control over the amount of parking built in cities, and parking serves as the terminal for car transportation.  So, we have equal control.

I'm not sure what you mean for airports, they don't serve the same use case, which is exactly the point, it's not a populist issue.  However, just because it affects and is core to everyone's lives doesn't mean that we can't implement these solutions, for example, see the hydro example.

I disagree with your characterisation of my view of roads. I am well aware of how they benefit and impact society. Transportation is one of the most important things in our world...for example, whether a small depressed town has good access to transportation is the biggest predictor of social mobility for the people in that town.  You are also conflating cars with roads...roads doesn't have to mean something designed for the exclusive use of cars, which is what I am (and traffic engineers are) generally referring to.  I do support roads.

But I think you downplay airports too, for example, yes Pearson is used by upper class folks who want to travel to destinations abroad.  But the airports which provide access to the North bring food and supplies that keep those settlements running.  But just like airports differ, so do roads, the social benefit brought by having roads, isn't necessarily enhanced by having enormous roads.

[tomh009]

Ah, I see.  I'm skeptical of that idea because it would involve something like 3 transfers at best (ykf->local train station->Pearson area train station?->Pearson airport).  Without really steady traffic those transfer/waits could be quite long and it would require passengers to leave really long windows between flights.

It usually takes me over an hour to get from Newark Airport to New York Penn Station w/o a car even at peak times and where they've got relatively good train routes set up.  If I land at an off-peak time it can be well over 90 minutes because regional rail just doesn't run that often.

I count that as two connections: 

1. (YKF inbound flight) to (KPX*)
   
2. (KPX) to (YYZ outbound flight)
   

as opposed to the just single connection.

And, yes, the train would need to be fairly speedy, frequent and reliable. (EWR to NYC Penn Station is only 12.6 miles -- but 28 minutes.)

* Kitchener-Pearson Xpress!

[SammyOES]

I count that as two connections: 

1. (YKF inbound flight) to (KPX*)
   
2. (KPX) to (YYZ outbound flight)
   

as opposed to the just single connection.

And, yes, the train would need to be fairly speedy, frequent and reliable. (EWR to NYC Penn Station is only 12.6 miles -- but 28 minutes.)

* Kitchener-Pearson Xpress!

I think KPX is realistically three segments though. A short ride/train from the physical airport to some train station in Breslau. The main train towards Toronto. Then some other short train (probably what already exists) to get to Pearson proper. I just can't imagine the average waiting time for any of those segments would be < 10-15 minutes.

Edit: Not only is that trip only 12.6 miles, it also only has 2 intermediate stops! I assume there's a lot more congestion getting into Manhattan than we'd have with Toronto, but they also have way more rail lines... so I don't really know how it all evens out - but I think the short answer is that its hard to do all of this quickly.

[tomh009]

I count that as two connections: 

1. (YKF inbound flight) to (KPX*)
   
2. (KPX) to (YYZ outbound flight)
   

as opposed to the just single connection.

And, yes, the train would need to be fairly speedy, frequent and reliable. (EWR to NYC Penn Station is only 12.6 miles -- but 28 minutes.)

* Kitchener-Pearson Xpress!

I think KPX is realistically three segments though.  A short ride/train from the physical airport to some train station in Breslau.  The main train towards Toronto.  Then some other short train (probably what already exists) to get to Pearson proper.   I just can't imagine the average waiting time for any of those segments would be < 10-15 minutes.

Edit: Not only is that trip only 12.6 miles, it also only has 2 intermediate stops!  I assume there's a lot more congestion getting into Manhattan than we'd have with Toronto, but they also have way more rail lines... so I don't really know how it all evens out - but I think the short answer is that its hard to do all of this quickly.

If KPX is three segments, it really won't work for this scenario -- or merit the "X" in the name. (There might need to be a shuttle between YKF and the train station, but they should be able to easily synchronize that with the train arrivals/departures.) But all of this is highly speculative, the GTAA plan is pretty nebulous, all-day GO is still years away, the Breslau station doesn't exist and high-speed trains run only in our imaginations! We'll need to wait and see what actually happens.

[SammyOES]

First, I don't think it's fair to make your points, and then declare the conversation over.

I didn't mean to be unfair. I figured you would have the last word in rebuttal to my post, but I wanted you to know that I wasn't going to respond. I feel like I'm not going to get anywhere continuing to discuss road usage/parking/etc. with you and this thread isn't really the place to have that discussion anyway, imo.

[danbrotherston]

First, I don't think it's fair to make your points, and then declare the conversation over.

I didn't mean to be unfair.  I figured you would have the last word in rebuttal to my post, but I wanted you to know that I wasn't going to respond.  I feel like I'm not going to get anywhere continuing to discuss road usage/parking/etc. with you and this thread isn't really the place to have that discussion anyway, imo.

Fair enough.  FWIW I agree with you on the airport issues, I'm skeptical of whether YKF would ever serve connections from Pearson...and I think there are other options for increasing capacity at Pearson.

[tomh009]

I'm always a bit skeptical of claims about capacity at major airports like Pearson.  There are ways to increase capacity without a new runway: bigger aircrafts on average, improvements in air traffic / ground control technology, moving some traffic earlier / later in the day, etc..  A lot of major airports are feeling these constraints so there are industry wide incentives to focus on these things.

Since we are getting back to the airport capacity discussion I'll respond to this one now.

Airports can't practically mandate aircraft sizes. Landing slot constraints have pushed some airlines to adopt much larger aircraft (A380, for example) but passengers also want higher frequencies so there is the parallel but opposite movement to downgauge, from the 777/747 size range to the 787/A330 range.

Air traffic control technology is overdue for an overhaul but it's a long-term project. FAA started the NextGen project over 10 years ago, and the first phase of implementation is not due until 2025. Full benefits will be seen maybe somewhere between 2030 and 2040 in the US -- Canadian equivalent is TBD.

Opening more slots in the early mornings or late nights may be feasible, but it's subject to constraints through noise regulations and also matching slots at the flight destinations (or origins).

[SammyOES]

The thing that gives me hope here though is that it seems like everyone's economic incentives are aligned fairly well.  There are still a fair number of flights from YYZ on small regional planes (and "regional" seems to be covering a larger and larger area every year), if the cost per flight at Pearson goes up because of demand there'll be pressure on the airlines to use bigger planes.  And from the passenger point of view there's really not too much of a difference between flying on a smaller plane or a larger one.  250 passengers embark/disembark slower than 100, but aside from that the majority of the trip is roughly equivalent.   It does seem like the long haul routes are generally moving to smaller more fuel efficient planes - but what is the make up of traffic at Pearson?

I agree that progress on a lot of the air traffic control side of things moves slowly.  But that can change quickly if there becomes a big push to modernize - and technology itself can change quickly and totally upset the long range plans.  For example, if (big if?) we have full self-driving cars in 20 years, its hard to image that parts of that same technology won't flow through to vastly improving planes and plane movements.