Porter Airlines Moves Forward

Porter Airlines, a new airline set to start operating out of Toronto's city center island airport later this year, announced its first route on Tuesday. Airline officials said service would begin with 10 roundtrips a day to Ottawa from the island, which is close to Toronto's downtown financial hub. That caused a flurry of protests from opponents, who think the whole idea is awful, that it will cause excessive noise and harm the downtown redevelopment plans, and don't want the airline to get permission to fly. Undeterred, Porter Airlines President Robert Deluce said the carrier—which has ordered ten 70-seat turboprop planes from Canada's Bombardier and has options for another 10—eventually plans to fly to 17 cities in the United States and Canada, including Boston, Chicago, Washington, New York, Philadelphia, Detroit and Montreal. Porter said the flights will start early in the morning and fly until 9 p.m. or 10 p.m. at night. The airport is run by the Toronto Port Authority, which is under investigation by Canada's government over allegations it owes millions of dollars in property taxes. The island airport's only link to the city is a ferry service, which the Toronto Port Authority has promised to update and improve.