Duane Hicks
The volume of air traffic is up at the Fort Frances Airport compared to last year thanks, at least in part, to extra flights tied to New Gold’s Rainy River project.
An 57 additional aircraft landed at the airport here as of the end of June compared to 2014.
There were 1,312 landings between Jan. 1 and June 30 versus 1,255 over that span in 2014, said airport supervisor Tom Batiuk.
“It’s been increasing,” he noted, adding July also has been “absolutely crazy”—the busiest he’s seen since starting there in 2010.
The breakdown of total flights as of June 30, with the number for 2014 indicated in parentheses, is as follows:
•Bearskin Airlines passengers—1,855 (1,841);
•Bearskin Airlines flights—464 (467);
•government flights—26 (18);
•private aircraft—130 (99);
•medevac flights—224 (183);
•international flights (people landing here to clear Customs)—122 (127); and
•commercial flights (i.e. charters, etc.)—346 (361).
Batiuk said there’s several reasons for the increases.
“There’s definitely a lot more medevac flights here,” he remarked.
“Obviously, the doctor situation in Fort Frances being what it is, they tend to ship people out a lot more than what they had in the past,” noted Batiuk, though he was quick to add traffic does go up and down each year.
In 2013, for example, there had been 226 medevac flights by the end of June—two more than this year.
Private flights also are a factor this year.
“We’ve got a pretty healthy crop of pilots around here,” said Batiuk, explaining it’s common for pilots to take up private aircraft on a nice evening and “enjoy the scenery around the community and around the district.”
International flights are comparable to last year due to the strong U.S. dollar while Bearskin passengers are up because of the mine, he noted.
“There’s lots of transient workers going in and out,” Batiuk said, adding the airport’s also “doing lots of charters in and out of here related to the mine work.”
“I talked to the mine manager on occasion here, and there’s probably going to be a lot more coming here in the next month and up through the next couple years until the mine’s up and running.”
As of the end of May, overall revenue at the airport also is up by more than $20,824 compared to the same period last year, with the figures for June and July to indicate a significant boost in profit.
“Our revenue will be up because our fuel sales are up tremendously,” said Batiuk.
“In June, with the arrival and departure of the ‘Snowbirds,’ we sold 20,000 litres of jet fuel in just a couple days there.
“It might take us two or three months to sell that much typically,” he noted.
Batiuk also has made adjustments to how the airport sells fuel—trying to keep the price as close to the U.S. cost as he can.
“That’s our largest opportunity for growth in fuel sales is to attract U.S. customers to purchase fuel here,” he explained.
“By keeping my fuel price relatively low compared to some of the other airports in Northwestern Ontario, we’re still making a good profit.
“Some sales and some margin is better than no sales and no margin,” Batiuk reasoned, adding that’s been his philosophy for the past three years and “it’s starting to trend up for us.
“That’s why you’re seeing the difference in revenue here at the airport,” he remarked.
“And then I took a look at everything from lights to toilet paper and the garbage bags we use—everything—and streamlined this place the best I can to make it the least amount of a burden to the taxpayers.”
What’s more, new surveillance cameras that recently were installed on the terminal building are helping obtain revenue during periods when the airport is unattended.
The cameras allow the airport to keep track of who is landing and can collect landing fees from them even when no one is working at the terminal, Batiuk explained.
“Basically what I’ve done is taken a page from the Manitouwadge airport because they’re not staffed even as much as we are and [yet] they capture landing fees after hours from medevacs,” he noted.
“And that’s exactly what we’re doing here.”
Batiuk said the surveillance cameras cost the town $3,000. But in the month since they’ve been installed, Batiuk has collected fees for 12 landings—generating a little over $2,400 in revenue.
“It’s almost paid for itself, and it’s only been up and running for a little over a month now,” he noted.
“We were missing approximately 160 landings a year by not collecting them after-hours,” added Batiuk. “No more.
“That’s $20,000 approximately that I’m going to add to the bottom line by putting a $3,000 camera system in.”
As well, the town obtained a grant from Transport Canada—through the Airports Capital Assistance Program—to replace its front-end loader, which was more than 20 years old, and a snowblower attachment.
The new loader and snowblower attachment, which were funded 100 percent by the federal grant, will be in place before the snow flies.
