Changes prepare for take off at Yellowknife Airport
Committee asks for extension in order to review plan that could raise fees for passengers
Jessica Davey-Quantick
Northern News Services
Tuesday, October 18, 2016
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
The Department of Transportation is hoping to make changes that would make the Yellowknife Airport financially self sufficient, but could add up to $29 to the cost of a ticket.
Changes to the Yellowknife Airport would make it self-sufficient, but could also raise the cost of flying in and out of the NWT. - NNSL file photo
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The 2016-17 budget proposes establishing a revolving fund to handle maintenance, operations and improvements to the airport. The draft business plan proposes an airport improvement fee that would charge travellers heading south $20, with those flying within the NWT $10. Existing fees already charged to airlines, like landing fees and general terminal fees, would also increase under the proposed plan, adding an additional $7 to $9 per passenger. The transportation department estimates these changes would generate around $10 million in new revenue a year.
The department presented the draft of their five-year business plan to the Standing Committee on Economic Development and Environment in an in-camera briefing Monday, but any changes will have to wait for a bill proposing amendments to the Revolving Funds Act to pass the legislative assembly.
The bill has already passed first and second readings, but committee chair Cory Vanthuyne says the plan is to request an extension for the review period for amending the act during this session of the legislative assembly.
"We felt it was important that we had the business plan in our hands before we started reaching out to the public. And we didn't get that until, unfortunately, until about the second week of September," he said.
If the extension is granted, he says he expects to have the committee's report ready to present by the February-March sitting.
The Yellowknife Airport handles around 58,000 flights carrying about 500,000 passengers per year. About half the passengers going through the airport are not residents of the territory.
Michael Conway, regional superintendent of the North Slave Region for the Department of Transportation, says the changes would bring the airport in line with the rest of the country.
For example, he estimates a Boeing 737-800, a commonly used passenger aircraft, would be charged a landing fee of between $750 to $1,200 in other Canadian cities.
"In Yellowknife, we only charge $209 for that aircraft to land. We're charging a fraction of what everybody else would charge for that type of an aircraft," he said.
The fees collected will go into a dedicated revolving fund, not to exceed $37 million, if the bill passes. The GNWT will retain control of the airport, which is a cause for concern for MLA Kieron Testart.
"It's not going to be an independent authority that charges its own rates, that retains its own revenues, and that directs its own business operations and business plan. It's going to be housed in the Department of Transportation, and be staffed by government employees and take direction from the government," said Testart.
Conway says that's not a bad thing.
"We don't necessarily have to give up ownership of the Yellowknife Airport for it to be financially self-sufficient. If the airport can be self-sufficient and do all the things and activities that we're hoping that it's going to do, then there's really no reason to go that final step to the airport authority," he said.
The Department of Transportation estimates taxpayers subsidize the Yellowknife Airport by $4 million a year, money Conway speculated could be filtered to other projects around the territory.
"From the GNWT perspective is it should be an economic catalyst," he said. "The profit isn't necessarily at the airport, the profit is what the territory will receive from all the economic development that the airport should be able to generate."
Testart isn't buying into the plan just yet, however.
"Savings to government are not savings to consumers and savings to the public, unless the government is investing those resources back into the Northwest Territories, and we're just not seeing that," he said. "We're talking about saving money in order to further the government's fiscal policy and reduction exercise. We're not talking about a plan that invests in the North, brings more tourists to the North and makes air travel more affordable for Northerners."
If the bill amending the Revolving Fund Act is passed, Conway said the Department of Transportation is hoping to see things happen "very very quickly," even before the end of 2016.
The committee plans to ask for an extension to allow them to take the draft plan on the road and gather feedback from communities. Vanthuyne said he's hopeful that the extension would be granted, but says there is "always a chance" it will be denied.
