‘Getting here is an ordeal’

Businessman John Steele says government could help direct flights take off

They came to St. John’s by air from Europe and America, some travelling for 20 hours or more, to get to the recent Energynl conference.

Depending on the flight schedule, oil industry executives from Norway may have flown further west, landing in Montreal or Toronto before grabbing a connecting flight to St. John’s, with perhaps a touchdown in Halifax before they arrived at YYT.

“Getting here is an ordeal,” St. John’s businessman John Steele told the conference crowd May 31. “And it doesn’t have to be this way.”

Steele, who is involved in the hotel and events business — think the Iceberg Alley Festival in June and the Jag Hotel — says without direct flights between here and Europe and the U.S., the task of expanding the province’s economy is simply harder.

“It’s like going to a gunfight with a knife,” he said.

To put things in perspective, booking a premium economy flight from London's Heathrow airport to St. John's can range in cost from about $2,000 to $2,500, and take travellers anywhere from 18 hours to just shy of 23 hours to get there thanks to multiple stops, some of which involve flying past Newfoundland and backtracking from other destinations.

Steele understands, thanks to his family’s history in the transportation business — his father Harry Steele operated Eastern Provincial Airways in the 1980s — that airlines can’t be expected to service direct routes that may not bring in profits.

“Today, the airline industry is dealing with pilot shortages, expensive labour contracts, rising operations costs.”

Some airlines have occasionally offered limited-time direct flights from St. John’s to vacation destinations.

“They have no choice but to focus on profitable routes, with high utilization to bigger centres,” he said. “This will continue for years to come.

“That’s all the more reason we have to move now and we have to be aggressive.”

WHAT'S THE ANSWER?

So what does Steele suggest the collective ‘we’ should do?

Governments have to play a role, he said, with funding to support better airline access to Newfoundland and Labrador.

He points to subsidies for the province’s ferry service to boost his argument.

Steele said provincial government documents show that in 2020-2021, the province spent over $79 million to provide inter-provincial ferry services to 10,652 residents.

“They transported 537,000 passengers on ferries, generating $4.9 million in revenue,” he said.

By his calculations, the ferry service was subsidized 93.7 per cent, to the tune of about $7,000 for every resident of Newfoundland and Labrador.

“If we are willing to continue to do this, let’s take the same approach to air access,” he suggested.

HOW COULD IT WORK?

Steele told Saltwire direct flights would help ramp up travel for conventions, business-to-business meetings, special events, and tourism while helping to make the province competitive as a tourism, special event and convention destination.

More people coming in means more new money circulating in the economy, he said, and would benefit all industries, from mining and fishing to aquaculture, energy and the arts community.

Connection is key to building a business, he said.

“The oil executive from Stavanger, Norway, shouldn’t have to go through an ordeal to visit the local St. John’s office.

“Tourists who see 'Come From Away' don’t want to be worn out when they arrive to see the province that hosted the world during 9/11.”

Steele said it’s time to reframe the thinking around solutions to the challenge of air access to this province

“Money talks, and we should not be afraid to invest significant money to attain direct access routes to Heathrow and Newark,” he said, drawing applause from the 600 or more people who spent a lot of time and money to get here.