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Saint John Airport adds new route to Montreal through Pascan Aviation

The Saint John Airport has added another route to Montreal because of high demand. The airline servicing the route is Quebec-based Pascan Aviation.

Move follows unsuccessful attempt at Saint John-Bathurst flight

Hannah Rudderham · CBC News ·
Small white airplane parked on tarmac.
The route from Saint John to Montreal will be run by Pascan Aviation. (Graham Thompson/CBC)

The Saint John Airport has added another route to Montreal because of high demand.

Alexander (Sandy) Ross, the CEO of the Saint John Airport, said the flight will take place from Monday to Friday and will be serviced by Quebec-based Pascan Aviation.

"We think that there's a gap in the market, and Pascan believes there's a lot of reason why people want to get to Montreal," said Ross.

He said there's currently one Air Canada flight to Montreal and it's full every day.

A smiling man in a suit and tie
Alexander (Sandy) Rosss said the Saint John to Montreal flight will run five days a week. (Submitted by Saint John Airport)

In fact, he said all of the flights leaving Saint John are full every day. 

But demand wasn't there for a route from Saint John to Bathurst, which was added in September.

"When we had our initial discussions with the folks in Bathurst, they believed they had a lot of pent-up demand," said Ross.

They thought it was an opportunity to add more intraprovincial service, he said, "but the market just did not respond to it in the same way the market has responded to Saint John to Halifax."

The Saint John to Halifax flight, also flown by Pascan Aviation, was added at the same time as the Bathurst one.

A sign that says "Bathurst Regional Airport" in front of a large building with a wall of glass windows
A little over a month after a Saint John to Bathurst flight launched, it was cancelled because of lack of demand. (Alix Villeneuve/Radio-Canada)

Alain Guitard, the president of the board at the Bathurst Airport, said the marketing campaign for the new flight started on Oct. 2 and they received word that the route would not be going forward only a few days later.

Losing that flight, Guitard said, had a direct impact on the airport — which has struggled financially in the past and continues to be in a deficit. 

"Just for the month that we had a daily flight, we went from red ink to black ink," he said. "And so by losing that, we're going back to a red ink."

A smiling man wearing a grey blazer and black-rimmed glasses. An airport luggage belt is in the background behind him.
Alain Guitard, president of the Bathurst Airport board, said he hopes a daily connection to Montreal could be possible for Bathurst. (Serge Bouchard/Radio-Canada)

Still, Guitard hasn't given up, and recently, he said he met with Air Canada about potentially expanding its Montreal flight from four days a week to seven days a week. 

"We hope that we could get the daily connection to Montreal, and that would solve a lot of our problem right now," said Guitard. 

And despite the lack of demand now for Saint John to Bathurst, Ross said there may still be an opportunity for that connection in the future.

"We'd like to take another look at it and see what we might be able to do further down the road."

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Hannah Rudderham

Journalist

Hannah Rudderham is a reporter with CBC New Brunswick. She grew up in Cape Breton, N.S., and moved to Fredericton in 2018. You can send story tips to hannah.rudderham@cbc.ca.

    With files from Information Morning Saint John

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