Deborah Flint is president and CEO of Toronto Pearson. This opinion piece originally appeared at the Toronto Star.
Twice a day, plane spotters gather to see an A380 land at Pearson.
It’s the world’s largest passenger aircraft, a double-decker phenomenon that Emirates and Etihad fly to Pearson from their hubs in the Middle East.
More than being an exciting experience for passengers, twice-daily A380 service highlights Toronto’s status as a global travel hub and a key destination for international airlines. This is a signature plane that airlines use to service flagship cities like London, Paris and Singapore.
Airlines have requested more A380 flights, but Pearson cannot accommodate them at present. Growth in wide-body aircraft is stretching the limits of our current facilities. We serve almost 50 million passengers a year and are extending capacity through tactics such as busing passengers to planes because gates are full.
But these strategies only get us so far. As fun as driving on the ramp can be, does anyone really prefer to be bused to their plane? We need to build new facilities.
Our two main terminals are 20 and 30 years old, and they’re showing their age.
Our security lines now move quickly, but the spaces are small for our volume. Lounges and concourses are crowded. Designed decades ago, our facilities were not created with seamless connections in mind, so international travellers must still pick up their bags and recheck them between flights.
And our 30 kilometres of aging baggage tracks require daily acts of MacGyver-like ingenuity from our maintenance teams.
These are annoyances for travellers, and they are threats to the economy.
Pearson is North America’s best airport for international flights, with links to 70 per cent of the world’s economies. For Canada’s population size, this is an over-achievement that enables passengers to fly non-stop to 200 destinations.
But as Canadians have learned in global trade shifts, we cannot take this status for granted. If we cannot meet airlines’ expectations, they will relocate aircraft and routes to other hubs that can. Journeys will get longer and more complicated, precisely the opposite of what travellers want.
Prime Minister Mark Carney made clear in the recent budget that Canada needs to diversify its trade routes and supply chains.
Pearson facilitates getting to and from Canada with ease and efficiency — and that extends to the 45 per cent of Canada’s air cargo that passes through here. The industrial employment zone around the airport generates half a million jobs and $70 billion a year in GDP, 7 per cent of Ontario’s total. That’s the kind of economic asset to protect and invest in to ensure that Canadian exports can swiftly move around the world.
There is demand for growth. Our forecasts suggest Pearson will see 65 million passengers annually in the early 2030s. To meet demand, we will expand and refresh our terminals and create a digitally advanced airport that will be more efficient for airlines and passengers. This is part of the plan we call Pearson LIFT.
LIFT has been formally approved by airlines operating at Pearson. Their approval was a vote of confidence in Pearson’s growth and our ability to deliver the program with cost discipline.
This is why we are using a modern approach to large infrastructure projects called Progressive Design Build — referred to as a collaboration model. We progress designs with our contractors and set the final cost and scope at end stages with more developed and collaborative planning.
At a later date, we will be in position to share much more project information. We’re excited to get to that stage and reveal the facilities that passengers can look forward to.
Our approach ensures we are building new infrastructure affordably.
LIFT will enable us to continue attracting new airlines and new routes.
That will create more choice for Canadians and encourage competition among carriers, which will be good for passengers’ wallets.