- Metropolitan Montreal Airport, until last week known as the Montreal Saint-Hubert Airport (CYHU), has announced funding of $90 million from the Canada Infrastructure Bank, a federal Crown corporation. The loan is to Toronto’s Porter Aviation and its project partner Macquarie Asset Management of Australia. The funding will go towards the completion of a new airport terminal which started construction last August. The new terminal, expected to be complete in 2025, will have nine aircraft gates and handle up to four million passengers a year.
- Transport Canada’s Annual Airworthiness Information Report (AAIR) is back. As we reported in our January 6, 2023 newsletter and the follow-up article in our April 14, 2023 newsletter, Transport Canada (TC) suspended the reporting requirement for 2022 without giving an explanation. They did advise to retain the information for reporting at a later date. That date has arrived, and aircraft owners should have received an email from TC requesting the information for both 2022 and 2023 earlier this week. Reports are due by March 30, 2024. TC still hasn’t explained why they delayed the 2022 reporting requirement by a year.
- Air Inuit Ltd. is the beneficiary of a $14.5 million investment from the federal government for infrastructure improvements at the Kuujjuaq airport (CYVP) in Northern Quebec. It will be used to construct a new cargo hangar and for the expansion of their maintenance facility. Transport Minister Pablo Rodriguez said in a press release, “We’re investing to reduce food losses caused by delays and to ensure a more stable and efficient supply of goods for people in the Arctic and Northern communities.” The disbursement comes from the government’s National Trade Corridors Fund.
US Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Santiago Navarro.
- The RCAF’s fleet of CH-148 Cyclone helicopters, manufactured by U.S.-based Sikorsky, continue to be plagued by technical issues. The latest concerns the helicopter’s blades. Sikorsky says they may be flawed and at risk of “debonding”. According to a report by CBC News, the RCAF was notified of the potential risk on June 6, 2022. More information was provided in November 2023. According to this latest report, which was obtained by the CBC, the flaw “raises the unmitigated risk level [on the Cyclones] to A-1 — extremely high.” See this week’s featured video by CBC News for more details.