YKZ – RIP - SMH

On 31 May 2023, the operators of Toronto’s Buttonville Municipal Airport (YKZ) announced the facility will permanently close to flight operations on 30 November 2023.

Located at the junction of Highways 404, 407, and 7 in the city of Markham, Ontario, the Buttonville Airport has been operated as a private aerodrome since it was founded in 1953 by flight-instructor, stunt pilot, and FBO owner Fred Gilles.

Presently, the Buttonville Airport supports commercial, General Aviation (GA) and Business Aviation (BA) activities.

In 2009, airport owners, the Sifton family, announced plans to re-develop YKZ into a mixed-use residential, commercial, and retail development. In 2010, the airport announced the property on which it sat had been purchased by a joint real estate venture. The years since have seen airport tenants and users cast adrift upon a roiling sea of uncertainty as plans to close the airport were alternately discussed, shelved, and discussed again.

Ergo, the 31 May announcement setting forth the airport’s imminent closure was at-once heart-rending and unsurprising 

The effects of the Buttonville Airport’s closure will be felt beyond the community of aircraft owners whose machines were parked thereupon. Large tenants the likes of the Canadian Flyers flight-school and the York Regional Police force’s air-wing are now faced with difficult, conceivably insurmountable obstacles—as are aviation maintenance concerns Air Partners, Aviation Unlimited, and Leggat’s.

Following the first YKZ closure announcement, Aviation Unlimited erected a new hangar on Oshawa, Ontario’s Oshawa Executive Airport (YOO). The company subsequently relocated the entirety of its sales, aircraft hangaring, and administrative operations to the YOO facility.

What’s more, itinerant aircraft bound for the Toronto metropolitan area will, after 30 November, be obligated to reroute to Brampton Caledon (CNC3), Billy Bishop (YTZ), Downsview (YZD), Burlington Executive (ZBA), Oshawa Executive (YOO), Toronto Markham (CNU8), or John C. Munro Hamilton International (YHM) Airports.

TorontoAir Inc., the entity by which the Buttonville airport is operated, currently holds some 178 active tenant rental contracts—some of which entail multiple aircraft—such as Canadian Flyers’ fleet of ten training aircraft. Estimates place the total number of planes based at YKZ at three-hundred.

As the mean age of aircraft owners increases and flying hours gradually decrease, the closure of YKZ is likely to occasion a spate of aircraft sales. Stakeholders in the YKZ pilot enclave estimate as many as twenty-percent (sixty) of the airplanes based on the airport stand to wind up on the used-aircraft market.

Displaced aircraft owners seeking to retain ownership of their machines will likely not savor the going rates for hangar and tie-down space at the greater Toronto area’s remaining GA airports. Currently, hangaring a Piper Cherokee-sized airplane at Buttonville runs $650-per-month. A similarly-sized and appointed hangar on Billy Bishop airport costs $1,750-per-month—plus an automotive parking fee of $250-per-month, plus landing-fees and Canadian federal, provincial, and local taxes.

Canadian Owners and Pilots Association (COPA) president and CEO Mark van Berkel remarked: “GA airports like Buttonville are a bridge to economic success for the region and Canada. I believe that the public does not appreciate the jobs and economic contribution that an airport like Buttonville brings to the region. It saddens me that when an airport closes, part of something great is going away.”

FMI: https://copanational.org