Toronto City Council has an important decision to make at its meeting on April 1. The vote to accept the city staff report on growth at Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport will have a profound impact on our city.

Porter Airlines welcomes that debate and believes that approval to proceed is the most logical and reasonable outcome.

There are those who are opposed to our plans and we acknowledge that there have been concerns expressed that must be addressed during council’s debate and in the months ahead. Hopefully the misinformation and fear-mongering that has been visited on this issue will be exposed and discarded as a result of constructive dialogue by all parties.

In 2006, when Porter Airlines began flying, there were those who watched and waited for us to fail. They literally stood there and counted the number of people in airport shuttle buses and predicted our demise. Today, those buses are larger, more frequent and an important component of moving passengers to and from the airport.

There is now a team of 1,400 dedicated individuals, 26 aircraft in the fleet and 19 destinations in Canada and the U.S. We have flown almost 11 million passengers and were recently named “Top Small Airline in the World” by Condé Nast Traveler magazine. Not bad for a little airline that supposedly would never get off the ground.

This all came as a big surprise to those who didn’t just watch and wait for Porter to fail, but actively worked against us. This group includes certain politicians, community activists and, of course, our competitors. Every negative prediction that they had more than 10 years ago is being repeated today. The problem is that they were wrong the first time and have no credibility now.

Air Canada is opposed to our growth plans. Little wonder, given that airfares on routes where we compete against them have fallen as much as 60 per cent. That’s money out of their pocket and staying with consumers. They had a monopoly at the airport for 15 years and did nothing but eliminate routes and reduce service. Now they’re bothered by Porter’s strong presence after we invested hundreds of millions of dollars that they never would.

Had those opposed to Porter succeeded, Toronto would be largely without nearly $2 billion of annual economic impact and 5,700 direct and indirect jobs that Billy Bishop airport now supports. Our plan is to extend these benefits by adding destinations across North America, such as Vancouver, Miami and San Francisco. To do so, we need to introduce jet aircraft to complement our current fleet of turboprops and make modest extensions to the main runway.

These Bombardier CS100 jets are unlike anything in the sky today. They will be comparably quiet to the existing Q400 turboprops because of breakthrough engine technology and will meet the airport’s incredibly strict noise standards, which are the toughest in North America and perhaps the world. An overall reduction in emissions per passenger is also expected.

Some people falsely suggest the runway extensions will choke off boating and other forms of recreation in the harbour. The reality is that buoys are already located in the water at both ends of the main runway to guide and protect marine and air traffic. These will not move in any way that changes current use of the water. We have been crystal clear from the beginning. If the CS100 doesn’t meet the airport noise levels or if there is any material impact to the harbour or to boating, we will not proceed.

The staff report proceeding to council includes important recommendations and conditions that must be satisfied before our proposal comes back to council in 2015.

There is an outline for passenger and flight caps, which we support in principle, and will give the city a degree of control over growth of the airport and the development of infrastructure it has not had to date.

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Every poll shows that the people of Toronto support what Porter is doing. Let’s aim higher and not be unduly influenced by those who simply want to take Porter down. Voting “yes” to the staff report and recommendations provides all those involved with the opportunity to make an informed decision for the benefit of Toronto, its citizens and its economy.