It looks like its clear skies ahead for London’s international airport after its CEO Mike Seabrook promised a major jobs announcement for the site in a few weeks.
“We’ve come up nicely,” he said, one year after the airport announced 200 jobs would be lost once Air Canada Jazz moved its heavy maintenance work to Vancouver.
Over the weekend two moving companies cleared out the Air Canada Jazz building, packed copiers and other office equipment into trucks. Only a handful of cars remained in the parking lot.
But Seabrook said the building will not be mothballed, and instead is the subject of negotiations that will take it in a new direction.
“We are working on another tenant in the facility that we hope to announce in the next three or four weeks,” he said.
“It’s a different approach to using the hangar. There are several things being discussed right now that potentially could see new uses for the hangar.”
As for the rest of the airport’s business, things are going well, Seabrook added.
“We’ve grown ourselves nicely over the last decade to where we are today,” he said. “It’s been good, methodical, sustained growth and we would certainly want to keep it that way.
“Right now, we’re trending about where we were last year at this point and we’re just coming into our busiest months of the year, so based on the economy we expect to see good growth this year.”
The airport averages almost 40 departures and arrivals every day, with direct services to Calgary, Winnipeg, Chicago, Toronto, Ottawa, Orlando, Cancun, Mexico and – as announced just last month – Varadero in Cuba.
Seabrook again promised “positive announcements” on flight services in the next six to 12 months, saying he is working with existing and new carriers in an attempt to add flights for London.
“We are trying to grow it but there are airports that have increasing services and those that are declining services,” continued Seabrook.
“We’re plodding along at a slow growth. We want to expedite that growth and see ourselves grow quickly.”
There has also been growth at the controversial cargo hub that was supported by $11 million of public money, opening in 2010. It is now operating at 65% capacity, said the CEO.
Looking good
Last year was a good one for the airport in revenue terms. It saw a 3.8 per cent increase in its passenger numbers, with 465,704 people flying into or out of London.
That growth is even more impressive when looked at over the longer term, because it’s a 41% increase over 10 years.
