Air Taxi Service Targets Canada's Hamilton Airport

An upscale air taxi service has identified Hamilton's airport as a key site for its planned Canadian operations.

Former WestJet president Stephen Smith -- who purchased the Canadian franchise rights for the Earthjet air taxi service -- said John C. Munro Hamilton International Airport would be among the first locations considered for a franchise.

"Hamilton makes sense because of the demographics," Smith said yesterday. "There are more than two million people in that area who would find it so much more convenient to fly out of Hamilton than drive to Toronto."

But it could be anywhere from two to four years before the idea lifts off. Earthjet is still searching for an airplane manufacturer to create a fleet of small five to six seat jets that will fly between both regional and major airports. And it needs to line up franchise owners to purchase and run the service from airports across Canada. "We expect our (franchise owners) to be pilots," Smith said.

Eventually, Earthjet envisions a fleet of hundreds of aircraft with stand-up headroom, large seats, and a private lavatory. Smith says the service will allow time-strapped customers to avoid lengthy commutes to major airports and to skip the growing lines at airline check-in desks.

Unlike charter companies -- which require the rental of full planes -- Earthjet will sell individual seats to its customers at prices to be kept in line with major carriers. Its planes would travel a maximum distance of 1,600 kilometres, long enough to accommodate routes between Hamilton and Montreal or New Jersey's Teterboro airport. All reservations and sales would be filtered through a centralized system controlled by the master franchise which will share profits from the individual operators.

"I'd hazard to say it's a corporate jet for the masses, but it's definitely a corporate jet for the middle class," said Rick Erickson, managing director of aviation consulting firm RP Erickson and Associates. "By and large the people attracted to this will be business traffic. It won't be the 85 per cent of air travellers who are looking for a cut rate deal. Still it could be very useful to some people."

Earthjet is one of seven or eight companies just entering the North American market with taxi services using lightweight microjets. It has sold the rights to its Latin American franchise and will run a similar regional airport-based taxi service in the United States.

"The question is whether there are enough of those trips out there to justify the business," said Douglas Reid, a Queen's University business professor who specializes in the airport industry. "That's where the organizational element is essential."

News stories provided by third parties are not edited by "Site Publication" staff. For suggestions and comments, please click the Contact link at the bottom of this page.