I must admit.. I see Porter as becoming a success story, and eventually expanding beyond City Centre to serve long haul destinations.
 
Filip said:
I see Porter as becoming a success story
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It already is a success story. The fact that it came in at a time when airlines were struggling, yet still managed to succeed and expand at the rate it did is all you need to look at. Its been so successful that it managed to save the island airport.
 
Filip said:
I must admit.. I see Porter as becoming a success story, and eventually expanding beyond City Centre to serve long haul destinations.
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Unfortunately, it can't from the Island. The runway simply isn't long enough, and there's no way it'll be extended. The Q400's have gone directly to Halifax this winter, but that was only possible with the cold weather. Considering there are 17 cities in Porter's Business plan (and even many of those are a decade away probably) There is still a lot of work to be done before even contemplating long-haul service from a 2nd hub. Since Porter has been successful because of the Q400, I can't imagine them going to another plane.
 
jn_12 said:
Unfortunately, it can't from the Island. The runway simply isn't long enough, and there's no way it'll be extended. The Q400's have gone directly to Halifax this winter, but that was only possible with the cold weather. Considering there are 17 cities in Porter's Business plan (and even many of those are a decade away probably) There is still a lot of work to be done before even contemplating long-haul service from a 2nd hub. Since Porter has been successful because of the Q400, I can't imagine them going to another plane.
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I meant in the long run expanding past City Centre to Pearson.

All airlines start with small dreams...
 
Many airlines died because of over-ambitious expansion plans and spreading themselves very thin. Look at Jetsgo or CanJet for recent Canadian examples.

Porter has been moving quite slowly, first dipping its toe in with Ottawa, then Montreal, later Halifax, the seasonal Mont-Tremblant service and now EWR. Chicago would likely be next, and perhaps Washington, Boston, Detroit, Philadelphia, and remote chance of places like Pittsburgh and Cleveland. That's really about it, unless they wanted to go directly against Jazz and run a few planes to places like Sudbury, but I doubt it.
 
jn_12 said:
Unfortunately, it can't from the Island. The runway simply isn't long enough, and there's no way it'll be extended. The Q400's have gone directly to Halifax this winter, but that was only possible with the cold weather. Considering there are 17 cities in Porter's Business plan (and even many of those are a decade away probably) There is still a lot of work to be done before even contemplating long-haul service from a 2nd hub. Since Porter has been successful because of the Q400, I can't imagine them going to another plane.
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The Q400's range (with max passengers) of about 2,500 km is not bad for reaching many destinations from the island.

There are other prop airliners capable of longer range, such as the Saab 2000 (2,868 km).
 
Admiral B - I doubt you'll get many passengers in a Q400 off a 4,000ft runway for 2,500km!

From Q400.com (Porter's planes are 70 pax not the max 78)
Takeoff field length for 500nm/926km sector (ISA 70 pax IGW): 3,720ft.
 
Well that's true but it wouldn't make sense for them to use the full range for so few passengers. Toronto to Halifax was pretty much pushing it in terms of efficiency (fuel and operating cost/passenger ratio), and even then they only did it because it was winter. The cost of fuel for a longer flight is too much when the planes aren't full. 1-1.5 hour flights are easier to justify.

Plus, Porter's business model is based on business travelers, and really, most of the important business centres in North America (Montreal, NY, Chicago, Boston) are within 700kms of Toronto. Do Toronto business people need to go to Atlanta? Houston? It's hard to say, but you would need at least 75% full flights to justify it I would imagine. So really, Porter doesn't need to go the long haul route, because they're already satisfying their customer base.

Now if they ever changed their business model and decided to try and cater to the leisure traveller as well, they run into the problem that the Q400 cannot hold a significant number of bags. Depending on the size of the bags, the plane can easily bulk out at 70-100 bags, and with 70 passengers on board, that doesn't look like a good thing.
 
what you could do is similar to what British Airways are planning.

They are buying A318s to depart London City Airport with an all-business config, land in Shannon to clear US Immigration and take on full fuel for the transatlantic. They then take off for JFK and on the return with the wind behind proceed direct into LCY.

So Porter could operate their Q400s City Centre-Montreal (refuel)-Halifax, Halifax-City Centre even in the summer, if there was a business case to do so.
 
Porter already flies to Halifax on Fridays and Sundays (and holidays sometimes). It's via Ottawa. I was speaking in terms of direct flights.
 
I was on my first sold out Porter flight last week. I only happened to get a seat because there was a no-show. Keep on truckin', Porter.
 
Unfortunately it's usually not enough to have just one airline doing so--you really need a multitude. Viz the prices from Toronto to any of the big European hubs only served by AC and whatever the local flag carrier is. They're completely outrageous, and almost always come to a few dollars of each other. In fact, as I found out recently, it's considerably cheaper to fly from Heathrow to New York via Pearson than it is to just go to Toronto.
 
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