Region of Waterloo International Airport - YKF

[danbrotherston]

I’d love to see demographics but I don’t think this is the issue at all.  The general region is growing fast enough that we can support a lot of these flights without drawing people from much further away.  And it’s easy to drive to and park at as long as you’re not coming from Toronto. 

And I think the reality is that the large majority of people living in this area and in the market for a flight have a car and would prefer to drive to the airport. 

Or another way of looking at it, we need a much better base transit system before we have a large enough market of people where the transit to the airport is a determining factor in their purchasing decision.

Also, just because this sometimes gets lost in the talk about commercial traffic and passengers, Waterloo is already an important Canadian airport.  Recently #8 by aircraft movements.  Not the same business case as moving passengers but still an important airport to support and brings a lot of value to things like local Universities and the wider air travel industry in Canada.

Mostly I would rather not fly out of YKF because I don't get frequent flyer perks unless I take the Air Canada bus. And I have taken the bus several times, even if it can be pretty inconvenient. I did ditch a booked bus once when an alternative was more convenient (you can only do that on the return).

But: YKF actually takes 30 minutes to drive to from the University. The big advantage in terms of time is that you're not subject to the 401 being broken, or rather, Air Canada will fix things for you if you're on the AC bus. So, that is, if there is no traffic, you're only 30 minutes closer to YKF than to YYZ. The taxi to YKF ($25) is admittedly much cheaper than to YYZ though.

And once I parked at YKF and found it to be more expensive than off-airport parking at YYZ (eg park4u). Of course, on-airport parking at YYZ is pricey. But on-airport parking at YKF is $15/day sometimes (with a shuttle, when available) and $20/day (no shuttle).

Also, doesn't the aircraft movements number include flight training for a lot of the count?

Yes, this is the biggest factor. I am constantly paranoid about there being a crash on the 401 and delaying me 3 hours (it's happened before) and missing a 2k CAD flight. And there's nothing that can be done about it...there is no other realistic option for getting there (or well, there wasn't when this was a regular issue for me, now I can in theory take the GO Train/Via + UP Express).

Yes, movements includes training flights which also do touch and gos, it creates significantly higher numbers than commercial flights would.