One of New Brunswick's most prominent businessmen said Tuesday morning that New Brunswick should have one main, international airport.

David Ganong, attending a Greater Moncton Sunrise Rotary Club event, said given its location and infrastructure, Moncton's airport would be the perfect choice.

Ganong suggests Saint John and Fredericton could still have airports for regional flights.

Ganong said centralizing the airport is an easy way to boost the economy.

Right now, Ganong said, the three airports compete more than they co-operate, duplicating some of the same services.

"We have to be more co-operative than competitive I think," he said.

Ganong said a decision should be made to make, "one of them the international" airport.

"To build an economy, to build business you've got to have people easily (able to) move in and out of the area and it's by air these days," he said.

Ganong, who helps run his family's 139-year-old chocolate company said growing his business has always relied on easy access to travel but said, right now, New Brunswick has too many choices.

He said new Brunswick has a lot to gain by following Nova Scotia's model of only one international airport.

"Air connects are really important I think to building the economy, to being able to fly to London, or fly to Calgary from New Brunswick," he said, "And those things really don't work well as they do for Halifax and other centres. I think those are some tough decisions we need to be talking about."

Not surprisingly Ganong's suggestion, of Moncton having the only international airport in the province, sits well with Moncton Mayor George LeBlanc.

" We are a transportation centre and a transportation hub. Not just for New Brunswick, but recognized to be so for the Maritime provinces," LeBlanc said, "So it seems to me there's a lot of logic to that.

Close to 600,000 passengers passed through Moncton's airport last year compared to 275,000 at Fredericton’s airport and about 220,000 in Saint John.

The CEO for Saint John's airport, Bernie LeBlanc, said the benefits of just one international airport would be marginal.

"You may get one additional destination, you might get larger aircrafts, but you'd probably might lose on frequency because we have very good frequency from Saint John, Fredericton and Moncton to Toronto, Montreal and Halifax," he said.

Ganong argues those flight duplications limit other direct destinations from opening up.