January 12, 2009     Reported By: Tom Porter

Portland international jetport is about to live up to its name again.  It's been seven years since the airport offered any flights out of the U-S, despite being called "international," an irony not lost on airport marketing manager Greg Hughes as he formally announced a new service to Canada at a news conference.  "Welcome to Portland INTERNATIONAL Jetport," he emphasized.  "We finally have the 'international' back."

Beginning February 9th, Starlink Aviation, a Montreal-based company, will be running a new service between Portland and Nova Scotia, stopping at Yarmouth then Halifax. Paniel Paquet is Operations Manager.  "We're very, very committed to make that air service a success.  And to make it a success is going to be a team effort with the three communities, and we're going to be listening to all the needs of our clientele."

"We're very pleased that we have this connection because Canada, as we know, is a close ally. It's our number one trading partner," says John Richardson, Maine state commissioner for Economic and Community Development.  "Our ties economically, culturally and with tourism now have been re-established by air routes making it much easier for all of us to do business with Nova Scotia."
 
Also touting the boost to business was Neil LeBlanc, the Canadian Consul General to New England.  He says the service will help attract more Canadian businesses to Maine as well as  making life easier for those already operating here.  "Many companies want to have acccess and close proximity to some the customers they serve.  They want to be able to get in and get out, and an aviation service such as this I think will help your business community keep the companies that are here, and it will also draw companies to this local area."

And of course there are the winter tourists, many of whom will be heading through Maine on their way to warmer climes, says Jeff Monroe, development director for Yarmouth International Airport (some of you may remember him as the city of Portland's long-serving manager of Transportation.)

"We also discovered that for some strange reason come January and February, a lot of people--just like here in Portland--out of southwest Nova Scotia like to go to places like Florida," he jokes. "Haven't figured that out yet but I guess we will some day.  But we also understood that if we were going to work with an airport we wanted to work with the fastest growing airport in New England, and that was a natural here at the Portland jetport."

Tickets for the service have not been priced yet but they're expected to cost between $150 and 250 dollars one way.  Passengers leaving Portland can be in Yarmouth in 40 minutes.  To get to Halifax should take a further hour.  Starlink will use the popular 18-seater Jetstream 31 Turboprop aircraft.  John Richardson says this use of smaller planes makes sound economic sense.
 
"It's the future. They're very cost-effective. You can take 19 passengers, make money and also provide a service instead of taking a very large 737 and taking off from Portland to Halifax and not filling up the aircraft."

This move to smaller aircraft is part of a national trend, says Roger Cohen, president of the Regional Aircraft Association.  He says the use of regional airlines, by which he means carriers of between nine and 90 passengers, has nearly doubled in the last five years.  "We are now half the flights in the country, we're 40 percent of the airplanes flying in the country, and more than one out of every four passenters is on a regional airline."

In Maine, this figure is higher still.  According to the Regional Airports Association website, 90 percent of flights leaving Maine airports can be classed as regional.  Also today, Portland International Jetport officials are reporting record passenger figures for the month of December. The number of passengers grew 6.8 percent to 115,786 in December, reversing three months of declines.  The year-end figures were a record as well, with 1.76 million passengers passing through the state's busiest airport in 2008.