A proposed consultant study aimed at helping make the Stratford Municipal Airport financially sustainable is beginning to take shape.
A city subcommittee is taking a close look at the scope of a proposed consultant’s study aimed at making the Stratford Municipal Airport financially sustainable.
At Wednesday’s infrastructure, transportation and safety subcommittee meeting, fire Chief John Paradis provided members with a list of proposed terms of reference for the study. These areas of focus include an analysis on making the airport profitable, an operational outline of the impacts of climate change, a review of tenant, passenger and annual trip statistics, and options on what the city could do if the airport can’t be made financially sustainable.
“Anything that has any type of financial impact, we’re expecting the consultant to bring that portion back to us. So if the consultant were to say it would be more efficient if you added in some IT or software or something else, we’re going to expect that breakdown, those potential costs, the long-term prioritization and suggested implementation planning,” Paradis said .
With respect to the climate change study, Paradis emphasized most airport consultants don’t undertake that type of work themselves, so it might require a subcontractor, which could lead to a higher price tag.
“What typically isn’t done in these airport studies for climate change – they don’t account for the aircraft when they’re doing the carbon footprint and things like that. Planes aren’t electric yet, and they’re not using a sustainable fuel yet.
“So those aspects are kind of taken off to the side and they look at what you can do, which is in control of the city.”
Those items, Paradis said, could include calculating and reducing the airport’s carbon footprint, studying its impact on the surrounding natural environment, studying the impact of worsening weather caused by climate change warming, transitioning to LED lighting on the runways, finding building efficiencies, and transitioning to electric-powered ground vehicles.
“I understand mitigation strategies and reducing your current footprint. I would be very interested in analysis of the region,” subcommittee chair Coun. Kathy Vassilakos said. “What airports are in the area? What the driving distances are. Where the trips originate. One of the analyzes they should be able to do is, if we have, say, 1,000 trips a year, where are they coming from, how are they getting here, how many passengers are on those planes … and what are those impacts? … One of the things that we haven’t considered with climate change is people will actually have to adapt to moving in different ways and flying less, quite frankly, so I do think there’s room within this to do a bit more of an analysis on that.”
Stemming from a recent service delivery review of the airport conducted by Blackline Consulting, the city has already increased rates for fuel sales and landing fees in its 2022 budget to improve revenue. As well, staff are exploring new advertising opportunities to draw in new users while the city submitted an unsuccessful funding application for a FedDev Ontario airport grant for additional taxiway infrastructure.
While that application was unsuccessful, Paradis said staff will continue looking for funding that would provide more hangar capacity, so airline operators and private aircraft owners could have the opportunity to establish operating bases at the Stratford airport.
From information included in this year’s budget, revenues for the airport in 2020 were a little more than $234,000 while expenses, including an $80,000 transfer to reserves for future capital projects, were more than $371,000. In 2021, the city budgeted more than $195,000 to cover the expected annual loss while there’s nearly $186,000 for airport operating expenses in this year’s draft budget.
However, the Stratford Municipal Airport generates $3.3 million in annual economic activity both in Stratford and the surrounding region, Paradis said.
“I don’t want this study to be fettered by the perspectives of investStratford or Destination Stratford,” Coun. Danielle Ingram said Wednesday. “I would like those two boards … to be completely separate and then, once this study comes back, they can present as a delegation or present us with their opinions separately.”
The proposed airport study’s terms of reference will go before the infrastructure, transportation and safety committee and then council for final approval before city staff can put out an official request for proposals.