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The Bathurst Regional Airport is once again experiencing financial difficulties and has upped its efforts to save the service from closing.
The Northern New Brunswick Airport Authority has formed a committee responsible for tackling the crisis.
Alain Guitard, president of the authority, said the airport needs to see $700,000 per year in funding over the next two years in order to stay afloat.
He said the airport tapped into some pandemic relief support from the federal government, but since that is no longer available, the airport has blown through its $1.2-million reserve.
Now, Guitard is calling on the provincial government to provide the money.
“We need a resolution by October. We really need to ask the province and the federal government to come up with some sort of program because we’re not the only airport in that situation,” said Guitard.
The Department of Transportation and Infrastructure did not provide comment or an interview before publication on Wednesday.
The Save the Airport committee will be responsible for convincing the provincial and federal governments to provide assistance in the short and medium term.
The committee is made up of Denis Caron, CEO of the Belledune Port Authority, former MP Roger Clinch, Gaëtan Thomas, CEO of the Conseil économique du Nouveau-Brunswick, Caraquet Mayor Bernard Thériault and Denis Roy, executive director of the Community Business Development Corporations Chaleur.
“To be able to get compliance with Transport Canada you need a minimum of staffing, and you need a minimum of things that you need to do. And right now we’re looking at maybe $5,500 a day to keep the airport operating,” Guitard said.
“We were operating at $3 million annually. And now we’re below the $1 million [mark]. … We had 20 employees, we’re now down to 12.”
The Bathurst Airport only operates four flights a week now, compared to two or three per day before the pandemic, said Guitard.
But he said the demand for more flights is there. The airport also gets roughly 300 air-ambulance flights per year.
The airport is “vital for our economy. And pretty much everything is linked into the airport.”
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