And Barber's column on the subject:
The Globe and Mail, Saturday, June 9, 2007 - M2
Tick, tick, tick: Time's running out for Porter Airlines
Al1 is sunny, breezy and quiet on the central waterfront once again this summer, with no sign of the scary air raids that once caused such alarm. Remember the David Miller campaign posters
that showed a veritable Luftwaffe of sinister airplane silhouettes blackening our peaceable skies? What a joke.
Equally comical, in light of the unshadowed sun of summer, 2007, are the old claims made by aviation entrepreneur Robert Deluce, founder of sputtering Porter Airlines. His grand vision of quintupling traffic at the obsolete island airport was loopy enough to make the Miller propaganda seem credible - for all of the 30 seconds it mattered.
These days, the airport's ordinary little planes are noisier than Porter's big turboprops, which really are quiet when they're taking off empty.
Among the activists who once expected a fight to the finish, the only action on the waterfront today is an unofficial Porter death watch. There's even a little pool floating around. Aviation analyst Robert Kokonis of AirTrav Inc. has bet his two bits on Porter disappearing some time in the "deep, dark months of October and November," when none but the most captive travelers would ever want to go to Ottawa.
Fellow industry analyst Ben Cherniavsky of Raymond James in Vancouver didn't give a date, but described Porter's current trajectory as "doomful" in his note on the subject. Every successive appearance Mr. Deluce makes on Bay Street, with good news ever more ambiguous and hard facts more elusive only raises the level of chatter on the death watch.
It's a fine old tradition in Canadian aviation, according to Mr. Kokonis. "As soon as you say, 'I think things are looking very dire, we might have to close down in the next two months,' what happens to your advance booking curve?" he asks, then explains. "it evaporates overnight."
Jetsgo founder Michel Leblanc at least published "supposedly accurate" information on passenger numbers up to the point he went bust, according to Mr. Kokonis. "In the case of Porter, a lot of us have to rely on Bob Deluce's comments at various forums."
With all sorts of interested and merely curious parties counting empty shuttle buses and trading anecdotes about empty seats, the closest thing to actual evidence of the airline's fate emerges from the latest financial statements of the Toronto Port Authority.
They report that the TPA collected $140,000 in airport-improvement fees from Porter passengers, at $15 a head, between the airline's startup last fall and year's end – theoretically meaning that 9,300 people flew Porter during its heavily promoted launch.
Comparing that number to the published flight schedule over the same time, Porter watcher Bob Kotyk calculated that each flight carried an average of 18 people - precisely one quarter of the airplane’s capacity. One thing is clear: The passengers Mr. Deluce aimed to serve - Bay Street executives attracted to the convenience of a nearby airport - have failed to appear on his planes, just as they failed to appear for Jazz, Air Canada, City Express and all the other airlines who have previously attempted to trade on the alleged convenience of the island airport.
