News - Stephenville International Airport

'Everything's not perfect here'
Former head of SAC addresses chamber of commerce

Former Stephenville Airport Corporation chair Tom Rose gave an impromptu address to the Bay St. George Chamber of Commerce last week.

The regular monthly chamber luncheon was hosting provincial finance minister Jerome Kennedy as guest speaker. After the minister's post-budget speech, Mr. Rose asked acting Chamber chairperson Mel Dean if he could address the gathering.

Mr. Rose told Chamber he felt it was the opportune time to talk about the challenges faced by the airport.

A former Chamber president and former Stephenville town councillor, Mr. Rose gave some background on the airport from his experience on the SAC board in the 1990s.

"We couldn't attract any new business at the airport because there was a couple of fundamental problems. One was that the price was not competitive to attract business, and we were lacking services."

Mr. Rose said the board at the time decided to put competitive fuel on the field at the airport and put a marketing plan in place along with increased services. He said these plans worked to make the airport profitable.

Since then he said the airport has lost many of its federal services - specifically flight services, now run by the SAC, and the Nav Canada technicians who once conducted work in Stephenville and at Pine Tree.

"They moved all those jobs to Deer Lake. Then customs moved out of our airport to Corner Brook. That didn't make sense. Now they're poised for Deer Lake."

Mr. Rose told Chamber he felt the community was not pulling together to lobby on behalf of the airport and to fight for services lost. He suggested the Chamber and other community bodies put a plan in place to try and solve the airport's problems - among them its lack of fuel storage capacity.

"Five years we've been running an airport and every week we're turning away international flights because we have no [fuel] capacity. Now we carry 250,000 litres of fuel. One plane carries 400,000 litres of fuel and we're carrying a quarter of a million."

Mr. Rose asked the Chamber executive to consider holding a meeting with airport partners and local political representation to try and devise solutions to the airport's problems.

"This airport is too important to Minister Kennedy's portfolio ... if that airport closes, there's tax revenue that will be lost. There'll be job losses. We've lost the mill ... we have a council that's struggling with their balance under deficit. Everything is not perfect here."

Mr. Dean told Mr. Rose the Chamber recognizes the significance of the airport. He said anything the Chamber does on the airport's behalf will be done in conjunction with the airport board, on which the chamber has a member.

Current SAC board chair Shawn Tilley told the Georgian the board has been meeting with political representatives, the town and the Chamber separately, and that Mr. Rose did have a strong suggestion in bringing the groups together.

"I don't see any problem with doing that," he said, adding he considers the airport a community-owned asset.

"So the more people to bring forward ideas, the better," he said.

He went on to say that members of the SAC board had pre-arranged a meeting with Minister Kennedy that took place over the course of an hour after the Chamber luncheon.

He said they discussed ways in which the board can work with the province on what he called a "go-forward" basis.

"I thought it was a real good discussion and a lot of positive things came of it," said Mr. Tilley.