As you’ll see in the two posts below, I spent my day at city hall, listening to arguments for and against expansion of the Toronto Island Airport (Billy Bishop) to allow Porter Airlines to fly jets into the downtown core.
Porter CEO Robert Deluce has been putting up a fierce fight for his jets, stacking meetings with supportive employees, pulling in allies from who he would buy planes and pitching, today, to a committee of city councillors who are mostly (ahem) in his camp.
There is much to be said about the jet proposal (and believe me, there was!) but upon reflection, one impression stands out above all. I think Porter will fail as a business if it doesn’t get permission to fly jets. I think that’s why we are seeing the expensive ad campaigns, the PR spin, the political games and manoeuvers. Desperation to survive.
Porter’s books are private, so we only have trends in declining passenger loads to make us wonder. Is this a financially insecure weakling that the City is listening to, considering partnership with?