Derek Neary
Northern News Services
Fort Simpson (Jun 15/01) - It will cost the territorial government a tidy sum to dispense with the in-town airstrip.
If coerced to move to the government airport, Simpson Air owner Ted Grant said he'll offer to sell his business to the territorial government for $2 million. Chris Yarrow, owner of Wolverine Air, is asking $1.4 million for his operation.
Barring a sale, they are adamant that they'll see the GNWT in court.
"It's not a threat, it's a promise," said Grant, who shares his runway lease with Yarrow. They renewed that lease with the village in 1998 for 10 years, Yarrow noted.
Kevin Hodgins, a consultant for the GNWT's airport development plan, warned that the government doesn't have to shut down the in-town strip. Instead, the government could simply order its employees to use its airport for all government business purposes, squeezing the in-town strip out of the picture, he said.
"GNWT traffic is the bulk of anybody's business up here," Hodgins noted. "If they (the private operators) want to be in the business of providing service to the GNWT ... I think it's a perfectly valid position for the GNWT to take."
Yarrow countered that there would be extra costs for landing fees at the government airport, not to mention greater expenses for gasoline to make frequent trips back and forth. There are also no facilities at the airport for float planes, he said.
"Logistically it just makes no sense," he said. "I'm not interested in doing any business out there, period."
He questioned why the GNWT wants to spend so much money on the airport terminal building anyway.
"It's not necessary. It's perfectly adequate for the one flight that comes in per day," he contended.
As for the safety issue, Grant argued that there are more migratory birds flying around the government airport than there are in town.
A second runway only enhances safety and it actually saved a DC-3 airplane, its crew and passengers in 1982 when it had too little fuel to get to another community and the government airport was socked in by low cloud cover, he said.
"Because of the weather systems we have here you can usually get into one or the other," Grant said.
Yarrow admitted there are occasional incidents with snowmobilers who knock out runway lights, but he argued they are quickly fixed. That problem exists in every community, he added.
Yarrow also noted that emergency services can respond more quickly to a crisis at the in-town airstrip than they can to the government airport, which is 16 kilometres away.
