Air Canada Jazz to fly from Toronto Island airport again
Last Updated: Thursday, July 6, 2006 | 9:02 AM ET
CBC News

Air Canada Jazz says it plans to resume flights out of the Toronto Island airport at the end of August.

The regional carrier said Thursday it will commence daily service from the controversial airport to Ottawa and Montreal on Aug. 28.

"The new ferry service and facilities being constructed by the Toronto Port Authority starting this summer are making it possible for Air Canada to enhance operations from City Centre," said Air Canada vice-president Ben Smith in a release.

"This will further improve what is already the best schedule for customers flying in the eastern triangle of Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa," he said.

Jazz plans 10 round-trip flights between the island airport and Ottawa on weekdays, and seven-round trips flights to Montreal, along with weekend service.

Flights cancelled at one point

Jazz stopped flying from the island in the spring after an Ontario Superior Court judge ruled that the airline must cancel its downtown flight plans and land elsewhere.

Jazz was turfed after airline entrepeneur Robert Deluce announced plans to launch a new company, Porter Airlines. Deluce once owned the regional carrier Air Ontario, one of many smaller airlines eventually bought by Air Canada.

In announcing its return to the island terminal, Jazz said it will use the Stolport Corp. facility.

The island airport is a point of controversy in Toronto. Some residents have fought to have its operations curtailed, and Mayor David Miller campaigned in 2003 to block a bridge from the mainland to the airport.

As a resident of the downtown/waterfront community all I can say is excellent! :)

Awesome. . .I love busy airports on prime parkland.

Awesome. . .I love busy airports on prime parkland.

Awesome. . .I love sarcasm so much, i think i'm going to marry it.

In all seriousness. It is not prime parkland as it never was parkland as most was infill.

If you would kindly look to your east hand side of the airport you have just landed in, you will notice that there are decent sized public open parklands that begin immediately where the airport starts.

That airport is built up land, it obviously can't just close and become magically natural again overnight, people aren't suggesting that, but the airport detracts from the beauty of the islands and the natural oasis that it is in a downtown core.

I swear some people are blind to bigger pictures.

If you would kindly look to your east hand side of the airport you have just landed in, you will notice that there are decent sized public open parklands that begin immediately where the airport starts.

That airport is built up land, it obviously can't just close and become magically natural again overnight, people aren't suggesting that, but the airport detracts from the beauty of the islands and the natural oasis that it is in a downtown core.

I swear some people are blind to bigger pictures.

I still don't get why it is such a big IMMEDIATE concern. Wait a few years for peak oil and you'll get it next to free as no one will fly commuter.

I'm glad Jazz is coming back. Should make for some nice competition with Porter in the fall- will make the airport a comeptitive marketplace again.

Miller must loose sleep over news like this.

"It is not prime parkland as it never was parkland as most was infill."


Perhaps you should get your facts straight before posting?

There is some landfill there alright, but it was started way back in 1894, for recreational purposes....not an airport. All the airport did, was bulldoze every building and structure, and fill in the laggons...and paved over the whole fucking thing.

So no....it is the opposite of what you claim.


Here's a blurb from a history of Hanlan's Point.....







"From a First Nations healing place to a playground for Toronto’s elite and plain folks alike Toronto Island from the very beginning has always been evolving.

But what was to come next was to change not only the tranquility of this generational retreat but part of its intention as well.

In 1894 the Toronto Ferry Co began an ambitious landfill operation and set out to create an enormous addition to the existing Hanlan’s Point.

On this newly built plateau they constructed an amusement park and a few years later a ten thousand seat baseball stadium where a young visiting American player named Babe Ruth was to hit his first professional home run in 1914.

In 1937 the Toronto Harbour Commission had a plan. They demolished the stadium, filled in the surrounding lagoons and paved over the site.

While Hanlan’s Point as a beautiful park with a long windswept beach didn’t vanish completely it’s nickname as Canada’s Coney Island with its beach side cottages, dance halls and moonlit walks on the boardwalk, was to be no more. It was now going to share its space with a very 20th century innovation, an airport.

In 1939, after the Toronto Harbour Commission constructed a control tower on this new flat and barren terrain, the Port George VI Airport now known as the Toronto City Centre Airport Island officially opened.

The appearance of the airport changed forever the harmony and rustic quality the Island was so celebrated for. "






KGB

If the Toronto Islands are not prime parkland, then I do not have clue what would meet that requirement. Central Park? Sheesh...