John Cutsey operates a software company in North Bay and Las Vegas.
His FDM4 International facility in North Bay is less than a kilometre away from Jack Garland Airport.
Cutsey questioned city council for allowing Porter Airlines to leave North Bay last fall after signing a five-year deal in the spring of 2015.
“We do not have enough air traffic between North Bay and Toronto, and guess what, we had a deal with Porter for I don’t know how many years,” noted Cutsey who has run his business in North Bay for more than 40 years.
“Part of the expansion over there at the airport was because of Porter. But guess what they decided to cancel early, like real early, and guess what, the mayor and the council allowed them to cancel. And guess what, with no penalty. Is that smart? That is unsmart, that is so unsmart.”
His flight complaints come on the heels of news this summer that Air Canada was going to also cut back North Bay flights to Toronto.
Back in July, Air Canada announced it was cutting daily service from North Bay to Toronto from four daily flights to only three.
See related: Air Canada cutting North Bay flights in the fall
See related: Porter Airlines departing for good from North Bay
Cutsey believes having more air service will help the city attract more new business.
“With those long runways we need to attract business to come here and build here,” said Cutsey.
“We need to have those services to be able to commute between here and Toronto. We should be promoting this stronger and stronger but no. So that was a big bad thing and it is still an issue and hopefully, under the new management we will be addressing those ways of commuting between Toronto and North Bay much more so in the future.”
