COPA is urging the GTAA that a series of meetings are needed in order to develop a plan that works for general aviation and has forwarded to them issues which cover six areas of concern.
In 2001, the Greater Toronto Airports Authority (GTAA) was asked by the Canadian government to produce a plan for the development of the Pickering lands, east of Toronto.
A draft plan was released to the public in mid-November and calls for the development of a three-runway airport with an initial opening in 2012, as a small general aviation airport which will grow to take airline overflow as Pearson reaches capacity in 2032.
As stated here in January, any new GA airport is of course welcome, but there are assumptions made in the draft plan that cause us concern.
For example, in order to create the initial demand, Buttonville, Markham (located on the western edge of the lands) and Oshawa airports are assumed to close.
COPA President Kevin Psutka, along with representatives from the Buttonville and Oshawa COPA Flights, met with the GTAA in December to discuss issues and to start what will hopefully be a consultation process with the GTAA that will lead to a revision of the plan to better accommodate the long term needs of GA in the GTA.
Since that meeting, COPA continues to try and convince the GTAA that a series of meetings are needed in order to develop a plan that works for general aviation. In order to emphasize the need for meetings, the following six topic areas have been drawn from the three suggested agenda items that were submitted by COPA to the GTAA by letter on Dec. 6, 2004.
Each of the topic areas has been further broken down to include specific areas of investigation that COPA feels should be addressed in order to fully appreciate the potential for General Aviation (GA) at any new airport on the Pickering site:
1. The Long-term Strategy for GA in the GTA;
2. The Planned Physical Configuration;
3. Operational Issues;
4. Phasing of Development and Investment Plan;
5. Pricing and Revenue;
6. Business Plan;
The draft plan can be found on the GTAA website www.gtaa.com (click on Pickering Project).