Originally Posted by
Ken hAAmer
One only needs to go to Bellis Fair mall to realize that for many residents of the GVRD (particularly those in the south) driving to Bellingham is a lot more convenient and trivial than driving to downtown Vancouver.
On many occasions, after a 3-5 minute wait in the line up at the border the entire transaction between me and the US official consists of:
INS: Where are you going today?
me: Bellis Fair Mall.
INS: Drive safely.
With a NEXUS card, it would be even faster.
I don't disagree that people will drive to BLI to use the airport. I'm sure some people do it.
However, the point remains is that people will not fly out of BLI to go back into Canada. Some will fly to U.S. or international destinations if savings are significant enough.
You're just not going to find massive amounts of people doing this for a grand number of reasons -- time, choice, frequency, distance, customs, etc.
Also, how many Winnipegers / southern Manitobans drive from to fly from GFK? How many people from the centre of the universe go to BUF? How many people from YOW drive to ROC or ART? How many people from YUL go to BTV?
Sure some -- and some are willing to drive three or four hours to get a better deal, but if *that* many people did that, I'm sure AC and WS would not be having "high load factors", and Canadian airports would have noticed sigificant drops in overall transborder and international passenger numbers.