Operations lease at Ontario executive airport to be extended 5 years as city eyes future

Management of the Oshawa Executive Airport will likely remain in the same experienced hands at least until 2031, with a staff recommended report on Monday’s council agenda that would see the city’s contract with Total Aviation & Airport Solutions extended another five years.

The future of the airport, the subject of public noise complaints for years and eyed by developers for more lucrative uses for just as long, is hazy after that, with the city committed to keeping it operational until at least 2033, with its federal agreement allowing it to potentially stay open until 2047.

Total Aviation has provided professional airport management and operational services at the Oshawa Executive Airport since 2006 and had its original ten-year lease extended in 2016, with an option to extend the term for another five years from September 2026 to August 2031.

The recommendation to extend the contract is partly based on a financial audit of the airport prepared by Deloitte LLP which noted that operations and safety management require “qualified and competent” airport operational leadership and that continuity in airport management is “important to maintaining operational stability and regulatory compliance.”

The city was embroiled in a long-running and oft-delayed lawsuit with the Canadian Flight Academy over the number of training flights which was only settled two years ago and deals with annual complaints from nearby homeowners (despite the airport being here for nearly 80 years), with complaints rising from about 50 per year in the early part of this century to more than 300 during the height of the pandemic.

In 1997, the City of Oshawa signed a 50-year Operating and Options Agreement with the federal government to operate the airport until 2047 (the facility could be closed as early as 2033 if a new airport was developed in Pickering) and has emphatically declared that the commitment to keep the airport open beyond its current operational agreement time frame date NOT be extended.

The airport opened in 1941 as a flight training school for Second World War pilots and was taken over by the City in 1947, many years before any subdivisions were built in the vicinity.