JUNE 2017
H
business elite canada
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One great sign?With 85,000 aircraft move-
ments expected in 2017, the airport has
nearly doubled its traffic since last year,
thanks in part to a new tenant, Montair
Aviation. Montair’s professional pilot train-
ing program out of Red Deer Regional Air-
port is expected to train upwards of 100
Chinese pilots at a time. Of interest, Mon-
tair is one of the only flight training schools
outside of China to receive authority from
the Chinese Civil Aviation Authority (CAAC)
to train pilots on behalf of Chinese airlines.
In addition to Montair Aviation, the air-
port has a variety of other well diversified
business such as Sky Wings Aviation, Heli
Source and Air Spray who specializes in
Aerial Firefighting and who happens to be
celebrating their 50th anniversary in 2017.
In total, over 240 jobs are based in the air-
port—which produces $100-million of total
economic output annually for the City and
County of Red Deer and Central Alberta.
That’s not calculating the secondary eco-
nomic benefits from those businesses.
ULTRA LOW COST CARRIERS
Changes in government transportation
regulations late last year could also ben-
efit the Red Deer Regional Airport. As a
response to industry to encourage more
competition, the government raised the
cap on foreign ownership to 49 per cent
(up from previous 25 per cent). “Because
of the significant capital requirements in-
volved in starting up airlines, in order to suc-
cessfully start up an airline you have to be
