Nathan VanderKlippe
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Nov 15/02) - City hall is angry at the territorial government for cutting labour and tourism interests out of the loop in its discussions on creating a Yellowknife airport authority.

"I don't think it's terribly democratic. I don't think it's representative of our community," said Coun. Kevin O'Reilly, speaking about a committee convened by the department of transportation.

The GNWT wants to rethink the way it runs the territory's largest airport. To do so, it has commissioned a study on possible options for the airport, and will strike a committee to look into the matter. The committee will include a pair of city representatives along with people from the Yellowknife and NWT chambers of commerce and the Northern Air Transportation Association.

But city councillors, concerned that tourism and labour interests were omitted from the list, got the mayor to write a letter asking for the structure of the committee to be re-worked.

Transportation Minister Joe Handley defended the makeup of the committee, which has been mandated to sort through the pros and cons of an airport authority in Yellowknife. He said it's too early to get all the groups involved.

"I don't think we've even reached the point where we want to be committed to it at all," he said.

An airport authority is typically an independently financed, non-profit organization directed by members of the private sector to enhance airport operations.

They have existed in Canada for the past decade, and run all of Canada's major airports and many of its smaller ones, including Grande Prairie, Alta., Thompson, Man., and Sydney, N.S.

Proponents say they have vastly improved Canada's network of airports.

Sandy Hopkins, the board chair of Winnipeg Airport Authority, said in his city the authority has added parking, hired full-time staff who are knowledgeable about the airport and the community, refurbished and upgraded the food court and taken away the charge for using baggage carts.

Hopkins authored a study on options for the Yellowknife airport. It will be presented at a workshop sometime in January.

"(Airport authorities have) led to ... a much closer working relationship between the airports and the communities which they serve, and a huge improvement in the quality of service a visitor or traveller at the airport receives," he said.

"It's a non-profit corporation operating for the benefit of the community, so you see a whole stack of initiatives and ideas that aren't there in the government environment."

Even so, the upgrades come at a cost: airport improvement fees, which run $10 per passenger, are charged at many airports in Canada.

And they have great power, said Mayor Gord Van Tighem.

"If it became very self-focused (without considering the impact of fees) it could do damage to the future growth of Yellowknife and it could challenge the entire development of the Northwest Territories," he said.

What would happen in Yellowknife is not clear.

An airport authority, because it brings together airport shareholders and has more flexibility than government, could help the NWT attract more tourism.

Another idea is to expand refuelling facilities in Yellowknife, making it a stopover point for polar trans-continental flights.

For now, though, Handley promised to keep an open mind and not make a decision until he is presented with the full set of economic facts.

But he wants them fast: he hopes the committee returns with a recommendation in a month or two.

However, even if the idea does catch on, Handley says it would be impossible to run an independent airport authority in a relatively small airport like Yellowknife.

"We are not at all looking at off-loading some of our costs onto the operators at the airport," he said.

"Right now it costs us a couple of million dollars a year or more to run the airport. I would think, given the amount of traffic, we would have to continue to do that."