The Rockcliffe Flying Club is on the ropes financially and is looking for donations from members and the public to keep operating. The club, a non-profit that operates Rockcliffe Airport on the east side of Ottawa, has been hit hard by the pandemic and revenues from services to members have dropped drastically. The club continues to operate a flight school in partnership with Algonquin College but it’s not enough to pay all the bills for operating the airport.
“We’ve reached out to our members because we’re at that critical stage and we need to do something,” President Nicole Harris told the CBC. The club has been losing money and going into debt to cover costs during the downturn. It needs a strong fall flying season to recover some of that lost revenue and to fund winter operations which are both the slowest and most expensive months of the year. The club has been in operation for 60 years and the uncontrolled airport it operates also serves the Canada Air and Space Museum.