December 11, 2009
By CBC News
Regional airlines and flight schools that will be shut down or rerouted by the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver say the federal government should pay them $3 million in compensation for lost business.
Pat Kennedy, the chief operating officer of the Pacific Flying Club at Boundary Bay Airport, said air traffic security restrictions during the 2010 Winter Games will virtually shut down the flight school for two months.
“We understand the need for air security during the Olympic Games and have worked with Transport Canada and the Integrated Security Unit,” said Kennedy. “However, at the 11th hour we are faced with rules that will cut our business by 70 per cent.”
John McKenna, the president of the Air Transport Association of Canada, said he demanded the government pay compensation for fixed costs like rent and staff salaries during a meeting on Parliament Hill on Thursday with Transport Minister John Baird.
‘They are serious measures that say you can’t do business for eight weeks,’?John McKenna, president, Air Transport Association of Canada. “We don’t expect the government to pay for our lost revenues, but there is a recession, and we think it only fair they compensate for fixed costs such as rent during this period,” said McKenna in a statement issued after the meeting.
McKenna did not specify the number of operations affected by the Games but said he believes the situation of flight schools and other air transportation businesses is different from those impacted by ground-level security closures.
“If the street is closed, it doesn’t mean people can’t reach your store. They just have to park and walk,” he said. “There are consequences for those people also, but they’re not being shut down for the whole period.
“We’re in the airline industry, the air transport business. These measures aren’t an inconvenience that you have to walk farther. They are serious measures that say you can’t do business for eight weeks.”
There are precedents for compensation, McKenna said, noting that the federal government provided similar compensation during the 9/11 crisis and the G8 meeting in Kananaskis Alberta.
Security clearances limited
Earlier this year, Transport Canada announced all air passengers coming into the Vancouver area during the Games would have to go through security clearance first.
But many B.C. airports, such as those in Trail, Powell River and Bella Bella, don’t currently screen departing passengers, and there are no plans to upgrade security at those rural airports.
That means flights will be redirected to airports that do have security screening, such as Abbotsford airport, east of Vancouver in the Fraser Valley, or Comox airport, on Vancouver Island. Passengers will have to clear security there before flying on to Vancouver.
Such a procedure will add hours to flight durations and cost thousands of dollars, according to Pacific Coastal Airlines vice-president Spencer Smith. Floatplane operations such as Harbour Air have already announced plans to cancel some of their flights in February.
Saltspring Air said it will have to transport its Vancouver-bound passengers 48 kilometres out of their way during the Olympics, up the coast of Vancouver Island, for security screening in Nanaimo, before flying east to the mainland.
During the Games, Canadian and U.S. fighter planes will be used to create a kind of security umbrella over the Games, that will possibly include an escort for planes flying in and out of local airports.
