NORTH BATTLEFORD, Sask. – In 1995, when the federal government was busy repealing the Crow benefit from western Canadian grain farmers, it also started to shed all the country’s small and regional airports.
Any airport with fewer than 200,000 passengers moving through it each year, or not located in a provincial capital, was targetted.
These small and regional airports were offered to provincial and municipal governments, and in some cases, to private interests.
The government kept the country’s 26 largest airports and placed them under the National Airports System, or NAS. It also kept many tiny remote airports. These airports are still owned and regulated by the federal government but operated by municipal airport authorities.
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The federal government wanted to save money and Transport Canada concluded the national transportation system was overbuilt. The department found that 94 percent of passengers were using the 26 big airports.
The federal government decided to eliminate the financial support it was giving to non-NAS airports.
It began to withdraw its operating subsidies to regional and local airports April 1, 1995, and ceased funding small airports on March 31, 1997.
Ownership of most airports was transferred to local municipalities. They are unprofitable operations that most are continuing to run.
Some of these airports, if used frequently enough, are eligible for special project funding under an Airport Capital Assistance Program.
ACAP funding is designed to help ease the capital costs of improvements to airports with regular scheduled passenger service that averages at least 1,000 passengers per year.
These airports must also meet certain security regulations, and have a runway at least 2,135 metres, or 7,000 feet long.
The Red Deer Regional Airport Authority, a body that includes the city and county of Red Deer, as well as the Red Deer Chamber of Commerce, operates the local airport.
While Red Deer averages 40,000 passenger movements per year, it has no regularly scheduled passenger service and, as a consequence, does not qualify for ACAP funding.
What’s ironic, said marketing manager Merv Phillips, is that Red Deer is trying to upgrade to meet ACAP standards, but can’t manage to do it without ACAP help.
“We’ve really been left on our own,” he said.
The airport has had to rely on assistance from the city and county to offset operating costs. The airport has also received grants from the provincial government to make improvements.
“Our long-term goal is to make the necessary capital improvements to attract regularly scheduled passenger service on an east-west basis,” he said.
Red Deer is eager to upgrade. At 72,000 people, it is the largest city in Canada without regularly scheduled passenger service.
“Our improvement program has got some priorities and those priorities are runway extension to 7,000 feet, security issues such as perimeter fencing, the introduction of X-ray equipment and baggage handling, and the extension of the terminal building,” he explained.
The federal government will only cover security upgrades if the airport already qualifies for ACAP. The airport authority hopes to make improvements with provincial help, step by step, until it meets ACAP requirements.
St. Andrews Airport, north of Winnipeg, is operated by the Manitoba Rural Municipality of St. Andrews. While small, the airport handles 27 percent of all aircraft movements in the province. With three airlines offering regularly scheduled service, St. Andrews qualifies for ACAP funding.
The airport received maintenance equipment worth $156,000 two years ago and has an application in for a snowblower and wildlife control fence.
But even with ACAP assistance, St. Andrew’s has had to diversify.
“We’ve been trying to figure out other little ways of doing things differently,” said Craig Skonberg, the executive director of the airport.
Through various ventures, the airport has reduced its debt to $33,000 this year from $250,000 two years ago.
Leasing out space on the property to non-aviation businesses while renegotiating leases with current tenants, and the introduction of a card-lock system to sell vehicle fuel from the airport contributed about $22,000 to the bottom line last year.
The Cameron MacIntosh Airport in North Battleford, Sask., has a card-lock system too, but it dispenses aviation fuel.
This automated fuel system doesn’t necessarily make a profit for the airport, but it does eliminate the need for an on-site fuel manager, which saves money.
“That has brought business back in terms of being a convenient place to pick up fuel,” said airport manager Randy Strelieff.
And like St. Andrews, North Battleford relies on the revenue from its leases to help make ends meet. Unlike St. Andrews, North Battleford does not qualify for ACAP.
“For the type of business we do, the airport’s been reasonably successful,” Strelieff said.
The airport’s tenants are Environment Canada, the air cadets and several small airplane owners who rent space in the last of seven cavernous wartime hangers.
The airport has budgeted to do work on the hanger roof this year, which the municipality must pay for itself.
The airport had revenues of $84,000 last year against expenditures of $129,000. Despite the shortfall, Strelieff said the airport’s doing OK.
“It’s holding its own, but not really growing any,” he said. “That to us is the cost of having a municipal airport here.”
Most people who use the North Battleford airport are itinerant travellers like businesspeople and American hunters, said airport supervisor Barb Plews.
“They fly in and they fly out,” she said. “The hunters come in from the States and fly here as the closest base, then the outfitters will pick them up here and take them farther on.”
American interest in Saskatchewan’s north is accounting for more of the airport’s traffic all the time.
“When you get private jets flying up here, it’s great to see them coming up,” she said. “And it’s been increasing over the years. The word spreads and more Americans become interested in coming up.”
Of course, it isn’t all Americans that use the airport. There is government business, too.
“We get the ministers coming in whenever something’s happening here, provincial and federal.”
