Buttonville Airport . . . CYKZ

[t_bone]

Its gonna be sad to see buttonville go. Not only for the general aviation sector but the corporate charter brings cash flow to the surrounding area. The assistance that the airport had received from the government is a small percentage of the financial benefit it brought to the local economy. You can think of this as a referral kind of program. 1% of the increased cash flow brought to the city will be given back to improve the services the airport offers. Some people need to realize the benefits that an airport such as buttonville brings to the surrounding economy.

With the airport shutting down, there will be few places for the traffic to go. Markham airport (cnu8) would not be able to handle anywhere near the amount of traffic buttonville does. City Center will not be able to handle much GA traffic at all. We can already see the transition to being a hub for commercial flight. There's also Oshawa, Lake Simcoe regional and a handful of other small strips similar to Markham.

As for financial assistance, compare Markham to Buttonville. Buttonville is serviced with multiple IFR nav aids, a control tower, customs and many other bells and whistles. Markham on the other hand has a unicom station that is run by the local flight school using a radio that looks like its come from the 1950s. Other then that there's just basic runway lighting not even a VASI system. The condition of the airport illustrates the difference itself. A paved driveway that has been corroded back down to gravel, a runway that needs a major overhaul and general facilities show how much difference there is.

Also I'd love to see you try to land a learjet or even a pilatus on a 2000' long, 50' wide runway. Hell, most of the students at toronto airways probably couldn't bring the a cessna 150 to a stop in the 2000'. The costs associated with upgrading Markham would be large but you'd have to worry about securing some extra land before you could expand the airport much. To upgrade Markham to a replacement airport for Buttonville would be much more difficult likely equally as costly if not more then building the planned Pickering Airport.

Buttonville is definitely going to need a suitable replacement airport and it looks like the planned Pickering Airport is the only one that will do the job. Hopefully Pickering Airport is making major headway before buttonville closes its gates for good.

[XcessEnergy]

Well it is unfortunate for general aviation that Buttonville is closing. But a good alternative other than CYOO, CNU8, CYTZ would be CYKF – Kitchener-Waterloo. It is only a 1 hour drive (45 mins for the west end of Toronto) and it is undergoing extensive improvements such as new buildings (hangers, service building, etc), runways, aprons, navigation (one of the only mid size airports in Canada with LPV / VNAV approaches). While the distance is a bit on the far end to consider it convenient for the weekend warrior the flight school at YKF does have one of the lowest rental rates in SW Ontario. Makes me wonder if YKF airport authorities are building hangers in anticipation of increased demand from Buttonville…. Things that make you go humm!!

[Brize]

It's sad and this should not be allowed to happen.

Lets give Torontonians yet another reason to get in their car and further congest this car obsessed city.

[Apollo]

I used to work at MillionAir at YKZ - awesome job, great people - the most annoying part was dealing with all of the NIMBYs!

I remember one yahoo in particular, used to call up and shout at me, DEMANDING that I tell the pilots/tower to change the airplanes flight path, as they were flying over his house, and they never used to do that and he's been living here for 5 years.

For what it's worth, when I worked there, I saw tons of money put into the local economy, as a direct result of the airport being there - it is going to be a damn shame to see it gone.

Anybody else have any stories about Buttonville?

[bizjets101]

Interesting, on another matter I received the following email from Bob Cable, who along with his family own Cable Airport in Uplands, California - considered the largest privately owned airport by based airplanes - I believe they have about 420 or so based at CCB.

http://www.cableairport.com/ Includes webcams . . .

'Sorry to hear about the closure of your local privately owned airport. you
can't be in the business and expect to make a ton of money, so I can understand
the desire to sell our. Some people are just in it for the wrong reasons. We
plan on being here a long time. My grandfather started the airport in 1945 and I
feel it is a privilege to continue his legacy. If you ever get back to southern
California please look us up.'

Bob Cable

Wow, a privilege to continue his legacy.

[MarkhamResident]

[Chaxterium]

All of us know that there is more like an average of 1 / hour, so this is not a busy airport

dude, there is WAY more than one take off and landing per hour at Buttonville. I assure you that during the summer months it is VERY close to one a minute.

[KK7]

Markham has the land to build a larger airport than Buttonville, lear jets and all, and will do this without any public funding. That of course is the most offensive part of Buttonville, it is the quiet covert siphoning of funding from the public for a private airport. If you look into Markham's "TrustCo", a holding company set up to funnel the money into building and maintaining Sifton's Buttonville airport, and then add to that the millions of dollars from NavCanada and Transport Canada, then it was the Taxpayer who built and maintained this private airport. Then there is the lie of 170,000 landing/takeoffs, that is more than 1 a minute for a 16 hour day, for every VFR day that they had in 2009, and all this using 15/33?!?! All of us know that there is more like an average of 1 / hour, so this is not a busy airport, the Siftons inflate this number to perpetuate the public funding, certainly if Buttonville was this busy there would be no need for the 100s of millions in public funds. The inflated aircraft traffic along with their fabricated 90 million contribution to the local economy (based on a multiplier of employee salaries) is simple propaganda to justify the taxpayer expenditure. This propaganda is now being perpetuated to convince all levels of government and the taxpayer to build the Siftons a new airport in Pickering. Let us stop the propaganda, stop the lies, if the Siftons want an airport then they have Oshawa. We should support other local airports such as the Markham Airport that operates privately and has done so without any public funding, that is how an airport should operate. Yes we can fly out of Markham, and have no need to continue with the poorly managed Buttonville / Siftons, it is just too bad Buttonville did close years earlier to allow airports like Markham to grow.

Who is this joker??? You're obviously talking out of your a$$

According to Statistics Canada, who get their info direct from NavCanada, Buttonville has 150 000 movements/year. This is a pretty reasonable number, and equates to about a take off or a landing every 2 minutes. When you consider the amount of flight training being conducted here, corporate traffic in and out and all the rest of the GA traffic in and out, I think this is very believable. This is the only realistic GA airport that is close to downtown Toronto now that Porter is taking up most of the space at City Centre.

The government makes money off of around 300 employees who work here, plus the corporate taxes it receives from:
Flightexec, an executive air charter and air ambulance for Ontario Air Ambulance
Million Air, an executive air charter
Toronto Airways Limited, a flight training school
Seneca College's aviation program
Buttonville Flying Club
680 News Traffic Unit
Corus Entertainment Toronto Traffic Unit
Leggat Aviation Ltd., an authorized Cessna Dealership that specializes in new aircraft sales, full service and parts supply
CHFI-FM, 98.1 FM Toronto
CFMJ-AM, 640 AM Richmond Hill
DancAir Flight School Inc. (http://www.dancair.com). The only establishment in the GTA to offer ultralight flight training
Air Partners Inc - maintenance
Aviation Unlimited - parts and aircraft sales distributor for Piper, Diamond, Mooney and Columbia
High Tech Avionics and Instruments - avionics and instrument supplies
Image Air Charter Limited
Druxy's Famous Deli

If all these businesses and all the traffic moved to Markham, believe you me, the government would have to contribute as well. With that amount of traffic NavCanada would be setting up shop there. All the navaids used for IFR approaches into Buttonville will have to be relocated, which is not a cheap undertaking. Canada customs will have to move. Transport Canada will have to spend a lot of time there inspecting facilities and so on.

[PunkStarStudios]

Markham has the land to build a larger airport than Buttonville, lear jets and all...

Wow.
You are soooo missinformed.

[bizjets101]

I would have no problem with my tax dollars being spent to build a new airport, even if it was 100 percent owned by the Sifton family.

The Sifton's are already rich, whether the Govt pays or not, whether the Siftons build a new airport or not, the Siftons will still be rich.

I however will be out an airport!, so I really don't care who builds it, who pays for it, or who owns it. If they allow me to use their shiny new facilities - the Sifton's would be my new heroes!!!

I used to fly a GA aircraft based out of YYZ, they blow 6 Billion dollars on the place, and what do I get - kicked out!!!!

So, if the Sifton's can manage to persuade our Govt to invest in a private airport - I will vote for and support anyone who can make this deal 'fly'!!!

Micheal C. Sifton Legacy Airport - if you build it - they will come!!!

[bcrosby]

All of us know that there is more like an average of 1 / hour, so this is not a busy airport

dude, there is WAY more than one take off and landing per hour at Buttonville. I assure you that during the summer months it is VERY close to one a minute.

Indeed.. There have been times (2 or 3 when I've been flying) during really nice day, where they crack open 119.9Mhz and have a "outer tower" freq to deal with all the traffic. You'd hear a lot of "NOT cleared into the buttonville control zone" on those days.

Only time will tell to see where all this traffic goes.

[MarkhamResident]

[KK7]

[Apollo]

1 an hour? Seriously? You must not live anywhere near Buttonville then. Have you confused Markham and Buttonville?

[MarkhamResident]

[ctmorawetz]

Just to clarify the Oshawa Airport is owned by the City of Oshawa and is operated by Total Aviation and Airport Solutions, which is contracted by the city to do so. As far as I know, the Sifton family has nothing to do with CYOO

[MarkhamResident]

[Apollo]

Now, I used to work at the airport - and during the busy hours (usually between 7AM and 8PM, give or take an hour or two), there was at least one (many times more) takeoff/landing every minute. Training, charters, private, etc... It is quite a busy airport.

[bizjets101]

If we held a vote to fund or not fund private airports with public money - then my vote would cancel your vote immediately - and you'd have no say in the matter - haha . . .

As for Oshawa, TAL has interests at Oshawa - (Canadian Flight Academy) and not an interest in Oshawa airport.

As for being added to YKZ's movements, if you just 'flew by', and didn't enter the circuit - then NavCanada didn't add you to the movements.

As for the movement numbers, that is solely NavCanada - it has absolutely nothing to do with the Siftons, TAL, Millionaire, or anyone else - so your endless rant is misdirected.

As for the Sifton's and Government funding. You don't get into the airport business to make a lot of money. In reality - the Sifton's have probably lost millions, if not hundreds of millions of dollars by not developing Buttonville Airport into condo's/malls/industrial years ago.

When I first flew out of Buttonville in the 70's, I didn't know who the Sifton where, I just thought it was a cool little airport and even back then had lots of planes.

I for one am going to miss Buttonville - the govt blows a billion on G20 security, 6 Billion on Pearson, 20 Billion in Afganistan, 30 Billion buy all the crap CMHC mortgages to give the banks their guaranteed money back.

Your crying over 1.5 million - once they develop Buttonville into income producing properties, and you factor not building for 30 years - I'll bet the Sifton's easily lost 20 million dollars for every 1.5 million the govt invested. (Probably a lot more).

[KK7]

Definition of movement, as defined by the CARs:

"movement", in respect of an aircraft, means a take-off or landing at an airport or aerodrome

It does not include people passing through the airport's airspace. The Sifton's have no control over these statistics, since they are taken by NavCanada and passed onto Statistics Canada for official publication.

[SierraPoppa]

Just to further this argument and prove MarkhamResident doesn't know his ass from a hole in the ground.

People passing through a control zones airspace are are defined as overflights and coded "runway 88" for statistical purposes.

This document contains the annual traffic movements for all airports with both control towers and flight service stations in Canada. http://www.tc.gc.ca/media/documents/pol ... 13-eng.pdf

For 2009 Total movements at Buttonville were 154,702 of which 80,066 were itinerant (those who departed to or arrived from outside the control zone) and 74,636 remained in the circuit. This info and that for 2005-2008 is on page 23 of the PDF document.

Also there were 6,436 overflights (code 88's). This info again with that for 2005-2008 is located on page 57 of the PDF document.

[MarkhamResident]

[KK7]

Well Sifton Minions, if you look at my original post I stated "less the circuit flights / pilots training", so then we have 80,066 - which include Runway 88 flights movements

Nope, the 6438 aircraft passing through the zone are not included in the 80 066 movements (that for some reason you don't want to include the training related traffic).

So remind us again why you're not wishing to include the training related traffic to prove you incorrect argument?

I'm sorry, but not only are the facts showing that you're lying, but you're now admitting that you're making up things to prove your argument? You've now lost what little, if any, credibility you had on this forum. I hate to break it to you, but lying, making up facts, and name calling is not appropriate on this forum. Goodbye.

[bcrosby]

I don't even know what MarkhamResident's point is.

I don't think anyone said the airport is closing because of lack of funding, or because they couldn't balance the books.

The airport is owned by a private corporation, they can do whatever the hell they want. If someone is sick and tired of running an airport, then get rid of it and do something else with your money. I don't fault anybody at Toronto Airways, or the Siftons for doing what they want to do.

[MarkhamResident]