Rent reduced for Riders, early budget items approved by Regina Council
3h ago
Council retroactively slashed $1.33 million in rent owed by the Roughriders.
James Bogusz didn’t sugarcoat it.
“Our airport is headed toward a financial crisis,” the president and CEO of the Regina Airport Authority said during a Facebook Live broadcast of the organization’s annual general meeting.
“But we’re going to do our best to work with our partners at the federal government to encourage them to help support our business as they’re doing with many other sectors.”
A return of airline travel also would help the authority’s bottom line. Bogusz said traffic through the airport dropped by 98 per cent from March to April as people stopped travelling due to COVID-19.
All of the businesses at the airport — from airlines to food outlets to rental cars — have been affected. Some have laid off employees and others have temporarily closed their doors.
The lack of passengers was evident in the setting for Thursday’s meeting. It was held in the airport’s international arrivals area, which was totally empty other than those participating in the meeting.
Unless the federal government helps out or travellers return in large numbers, the airport could have to dip into its line of credit to remain operational.
Bogusz delivered the news after going through the airport’s annual report for 2019.
Sean McEachern, the chair of the airport authority, said 2019 was a good year for the airport. It had hoped to continue its growth in 2020, but those hopes were dashed by COVID-19.
McEachern said it likely would be a couple of years before the industry can return to the numbers it has seen in recent years.
Even before the pandemic hit, numbers at the Regina airport were down in 2019.
The authority reported a 4.7 per cent drop in annual passenger numbers, to 1,179,485. It said that was caused in part by a 6.6 per cent reduction in the number of seats that were made available to travellers in the market.
Bogusz said part of the reason for that drop was the grounding of the Boeing Max 8. That caused major schedule changes and reduced service in the summer to Toronto and Vancouver.
As well, there were reductions in service from Regina to Phoenix and Orlando in the fall as a result of the Max 8’s removal from service.
The airport’s revenues for the fiscal year were slightly over $28 million, a decrease of 2.7 per cent from 2018. Expenses were around $28.8 million.
The authority spent $1 million to renovate the second floor of the airport, changing the floor space and moving some services behind the security checkpoint to give passengers more options. New seating, a children’s play area and improved WiFi services also were part of the upgrade.
Outside, the airport lowered parking rates, instituted new ground transportation fees and created a new commercial vehicle lane. It also arranged a pilot project with Regina Transit for a bus route to the terminal, but that project was deferred for a year due to COVID-19.
The authority moved forward with land development, leasing areas of land on the north side of the airport. A Canada Post distribution facility and a private terminal building opened during 2019.
One thing that didn’t happen in 2019 that Bogusz still wants to see happen is getting an American carrier to return to Regina and fly from the Queen City to a major hub in the United States.
That plan remains a work in progress.
“It’s not going to be in the cards for 2020 because of COVID,” Bogusz said, “but we’re not going to give up and we will be there again in the future.”