MLA says carrier for airport "getting closer"

By Carla Allen

THE VANGUARD

NovaNewsNow.com

Several weeks ago the Yarmouth International Airport Corporation received $250,000 from the government, which they planned on using towards meetings with carriers.

Results are promising according to

Yarmouth MLA Richard Hurlburt, who says that a proposal is now on the table.

“We are getting closer. The ink’s not on the paper yet, but we’re getting closer. We don’t have it fine-tuned to find out exactly what it’s going to cost,” he told a group of citizens who turned out for a public information session at Yarmouth Town Hall on April 12.

Hurlburt added that the corporation was also talking with the Halifax International Airport, American airports and American carriers.

He stressed that a connection with a larger network was essential to the success of a secured carrier.

“To have an airline come in here and not be able to have connections, or not to feed into a national airline service, you’re defeating your cause. It has to be hooked into West Jet or Air Canada or an American carrier. It has to or it’s doomed to fail right off the bat,” he said.

Hurlburt added that he has been lobbying government not to subsidize an airline into Yarmouth because he does not believe in taxpayers having to subsidize an airline into the area.

“What I do believe is we have bureaucrats traveling everyday from Halifax into Yarmouth and it will save the taxpayers money and be more beneficial to the bureaucrats to be traveling on that aircraft then that’s the way we should be looking at it and pre-buy tickets for them to be utilizing that.

“I have talked to some of the major companies in our community who have all guaranteed me if I can find a carrier with a fair market ticket and connecting flights they will pre-buy tickets,” he said.