Whitby FREE HOME DEtIVERY ArvII~ t '~h'~"rJ f Volume 2, Number 22 Th is was the ultimate plan for Malton which w as scrapped by Paul Hellyer af t e r protests by people, i iving in the M i s s i s s a u g a area. Arrow indicates runway 32 L which was never built. Thursday, June 1, 1972 EDITORS NOTE: On Saturday, May 27 Free Press rep- orter Jim Quail spent six hours inter- viewing pilots at Mal ton Airport on their impressions of the new Pickering gir- port. Following are their remarks: Toronto-based pilots at Toronto international are verbally questioning the need for a new airport in Pickering. The governmentdropped the ultimate developm e n t p I a n for, Toronto Inter- national, a plan which included a para- Ilel runway called 32 left. Thr Runway wasnever built but there appears to be ample room to build it. Doug Anderson, a DC-9 Captain who has been flying out of Toronto for sev- enyears said, "I tend to be against the idea of building a new airport. " As for the addition of new runways, he added, "Maltoncoulduse another parallel run- wayand the space is there to build it. " Anderson reflectedwhat seems to be the opinion of most pilots in that plane facilities a r e n o t in need of as much change as a r e t h e passenger facilit- ies. He explained, "We constantly have probl ems w ith terminal facilities and gates not ready so our planes sit on the runways. " He went on to add, "We (the pilots) f in d i t a trial just to do a day's work and because people are al- ways stopping us in the terminal to ask questions. I As for expanding the airport Ander- son said, "i have discussed i t with a lot of theguys and I think they would all agree that the, answer is to expand this air port! I" He feit Canada was spending ýmoremoney ornairports than the United States because t h e trend i n the U. S. seems to be fixing up old airports rather than building new ones. A Vancouver p i i o t for Air Canada who was waiting for a flight back to Vancouver feit Toronto International had suf f ic i1ent runway facilities but criticized terminal facilities. He won- dered w h y money had to be spent on a completelynewairport especially since he felt pilots have not generally exper- ienced stacking up of pilanes on runways as f requently happens In the United States. Bo b Muldoon, an Air Canada DC-8 pilotfelt the airport decision "was just a b i g political football" and suggested that the airport be expanded and Mal ton s t op any further housing devel opment on areas adjoining the airport. Ge n e Hunter, an Air Canada DC-8 p il o t said, he was "definitely for ex- panding facilities here. " He added, "I do feel there may be a requirement for a second airportat some time, but I think this one can be expanded to handie the traffic for a number of years yet. " Another pilot who feels strongly en- ough against the new airport is Captain J. R. Desmarais. H e felt t h e present airport at Malton is one of. the b est in the world because i t is not in a'snow belt, has good drainage, is far enough away from lake fog and is almost in the centre of the urban area called the Gol- den Horseshoe. In 1968 the Minister of Transport, the Hon. Paul Hellyer revealed expan- s ion plans f or Malton which included building a new runway thatwas not needed at the time but which would be n e e d ed f o r future. The runway, "32 left", was never built. It was a north- w e s t , south-east runway which would carry planes in flight over the Mississ- uaga area of 120, 000 people. A protest by the people in the area was success- ful in that the runway never materiali- z e d. T h e p e o ple explained that they built in the area thinking the airport would never expand despite the fact t h a t a i rports all over North America were expanding at the time. Desmarais f e e 1 s the n e w terminal under c on s t r u c tion would supply the n e a r future needs o f T o r onto Inter- national and th a t yet another terminal could be built on the present land. The only other expansion needed would be a newcargo terminal which could also be located somewhere else on the present airport site. Another problem cited by Desmarais is the lack of proper rapid transit from the airport to the city. He felt there is clearly aneedfor a rail system·of rapid transit. D e s m a r a i s stated that Pickering w as NOT one of the original 59 sites around Toronto studied by the Ministry of Transport engineers as a possible airport location. He indicated that in his opinion the only plausible solution was Story continues with more phot usà insicle