My all time favourite airline (and I haven’t even flown them yet) is now flying to Thunder Bay.
Flights will begin in June and is a welcome addition to Thunder Bay:
“Porter’s choice of Thunder Bay as its newest destination is an exciting boost for the region’s travelers, as well as our tourism and economic development growth plans,” said Ed Schmidtke, manager, business development of Thunder Bay International Airports Authority. “Toronto is the number one destination from Thunder Bay and this new connection to Toronto City Centre Airport makes the trip easier than ever.”
You can read the press release at Porter’s website.
I am curious to see what route they work out, there is no ‘good’ way to get to TZ from the north, but Porter usually has creative ways to get around problems.
An example of this is their private ILS approach to 26, or the new RNAV approach to 08. Baically what was happening was Porter was getting delayed when YYZ was departing the 15’s (or arriving 33’s), and TZ was arriving 08, so they financed designing a new approach that was clear of 15 departures. Obviously if weather is below RNAV limits they will still be forced to wait for the ILS or divert to YYZ, but this is solution mitigates the problem most of the time. An realistically when things get bad at TZ, they get really bad, and they miss of the ILS on bad days anyways.
As a controller, Porter is also my favorite airline.
@Joe, I realize this is two years down the road, but most airlines that fly out of Pearson to Thunder Bay follow a Toronto-Kitchener-Owen Sound-Tobermory-Sault Ste Marie-Thunder Bay flight path, this would be more than manageable for Porter as their main runway operates east to west, they would also be able to avoid the downtown core.