Will the Tory Pork barrel swamp us with flights?

By Frank Touby –

Porter Airlines, the one that uses an urban pest as its mascot, a raccoon, is trying to get permission in the U.S. to fly from the Island airport into New York/Newark airport.

Continental Airlines in the U.S., says it has no objections so long as it and other U.S. airlines can do the same on the Island.

Porter has a monopoly on Island flights which currently go only to and from Ottawa and Montreal.

Air Canada, which owns discount carrier Jazz, had been refused permission to use the Island airport by Porter, which owns most or all of the airport facilities.

Porter has asked the U.S. authorities to allow it to keep secret its financial data. Secrecy is a way of life for Porter at the Island, where the Toronto Port Authority has given it a secret deal, according to Air Canada, to monopolize all airline activity there.

Air Canada says this monopoly is in violation of recently struck deals between the U.S. and Canada and that unless Porter and the TPA abandon their Island airport monopoly, Porter shouldn’t be allowed into the U.S.

In order to get U.S. flights which Porter likely considers necessary for it to have a chance at making a profit, it would likely have to agreee to open up the Island airport to many more flights from other airlines.

That could mean many more flights per day for Downtown residents to endure.

Given that the Harper Tories have quickly gobbled up the TPA pork barrel, founded and formerly owned by Liberals, that could happen from the highest levels.

Then residents would have to hope that the prophesy of a WestJet founder, Mark Hill, is accurate. He told The Bulletin last May  “From a business perspective, Porter has no hope of success. He’s trying to bamboozle folks so they’ll pay him not to do it. I’ve done enough start ups to see he’s full of fertilizer. I wrote the WestJet [business] plan, I’ve consulted to jetBlue, Virgin Blue, was asked to sit on the BoD of BA’s Go and am a founding shareholder of Mexico’s Volaris.”

Hill says airlines start up and crash all the time. There’s money to be made in that, he proclaims: “99% of startups fail within 14 months and this will be one of them.”

There’s a reported $125 million war chest Porter claims is developed with money from OMERS, the pension fund for city workers in Ontario, and General Electric.

“There’s lots of money out there that’s looking for the flyer,” says Hill. “They [venture capital funds] have so much money to place these days. Throwing $20 million or $10 million at something when they’re told it’s a 10-banger…they’re looking for a 10-times multiple [invested funds] on this stuff. Put in $100 million in 10 different things and some of them fly and some don’t. Some very sophisticated investors have invested in some pretty dumb airlines. Big pension funds went into U.S. Airways in the States and lost it all about three or four years ago. And Fidelity out of Boston is huge, huge…they put $25 million in JetsGo and everybody knew JetsGo was going down. It’s a gamble, like going to Vegas.”

The disturbing thing is that even if the plug gets pulled on Porter Airlines, it’s all too possible that the Harper government will have enabled U.S. flights in and out of the Island airport, making it harder to shut the pork barrel that bleeds Toronto so badly.