Ottawa Makes Room for More Air Passengers

October 27, 2003

Ottawa Makes Room for More Air Passengers
New facility's fees among the lowest
Toronto Star, Canada


OTTAWA—This city's new airport terminal is a breeze to navigate. Just ask
the 200 passengers of Air Canada Flight 889.

When they arrived from London, England, on Oct. 12 — the grand terminal's
opening day — they were mistakenly allowed to leave the airport without
passing through customs. An opening day snafu, say airport officials.

Ditto for the airport wall map that redrew North America by mistakenly
placing Atlanta in Alabama and Chicago in Wisconsin.

But compared to the opening day horror stories of other new terminal
openings — everything from baggage-eating conveyer belts to backed-up
toilets — Ottawa's move to its new terminal has been smooth flying.

While the opening of the new terminal at Pearson International Airport has
been delayed, Ottawa fliers can revel in the fact their airport opened its
new facility on budget and six months early, just in time for the busy
winter charter season. It's good news for Toronto travellers, too — almost
40 per cent of Ottawa's traffic is going to or coming from Toronto.

Not many are missing the terminal it replaced, a cramped 40-year-old
building that was handling 1 million more passengers a year than it was
designed for.

"It was Third World and disgusting," said Paul Benoit, president of the
Ottawa Macdonald-Cartier Airport Authority, the airport's operator. "This
is phenomenal," he said, gesturing at the open design of the new building.
"Bring on the world."

Passengers seem to agree.

"I think it's great. On first impression, it's very nice," said Marv
Lubek, after arriving on a flight from Toronto.

"I'm glad they've got the TV here because the luggage is taking forever,"
said Liam Roberts of Vancouver, referring to the two large television
screens installed in the baggage hall.

"From what you put in for the airport improvement fees, you'd hope they'd
put in something attractive," he said.

Brendan McDonald of Halifax gave the building top marks but said the
arrivals area gives little impression that one has arrived in Canada's
capital.

"If you go to Calgary, you get a sense of where you are. If you go to
Vancouver, you get a sense of where you are," McDonald said. "This one has
a way to go. It has yet to establish itself as a destination, a sense that
you are in the nation's capital," he said.

That's not to say the new building doesn't have character.

The terminal has an airy, uncrowded feel, thanks to skylights that let
natural light flood in and floor-to-ceiling windows that provide a grand
view of the airport ramp and runways.

In a nod to this city's historic ties to its waterways and rivers, a
watercourse runs through the building in a design that mimics the rapids,
falls and canals of the region. It ends as a waterfall dropping down in
the arrivals hall where it's a soothing backdrop to the baggage carousels.

On display is a birchbark canoe, a mate to the one presented as a wedding
present to Pierre Elliott Trudeau by the Liberal Party of Canada.

Upstairs, an Inukshuk, a traditional Inuit stone statue, marks Ottawa's
role as a key connection point to the Canadian north.

The terminal is built to handle 5 million travellers a year, well above
the 3 million passengers it is projected to currently handle.

A $15 fee slapped on all passengers is paying for the $310-million
expansion program, which also includes a four-storey parking garage with
1,700 spaces, a new fire hall and aircraft de-icing facility.

And while the operator of Pearson is under fire for hiking airline fees —
up 29 per cent last year alone — the Ottawa airport can boast its fees are
among the lowest in Canada.

Authority officials have told the airlines that for the second year in a
row, the airport won't be raising fees. Indeed, the airport will be
reducing its landing fees when a 10 per cent surcharge, instituted to pay
for runway work, comes off on Jan. 1.
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