Porter Airlines (P3, Toronto Billy Bishop City Centre) opened a crew base at Thunder Bay on February 1, 2018, and announced it will increase the frequency of its only route out of the airport to Toronto Billy Bishop City Centre. It is the first base of any major scheduled carrier in northern Ontario, Porter underlined in a statement.
Currently, there are 20 Porter cabin and cockpit crew members stationed at Thunder Bay, but the airline plans to eventually increase the deployment there to 40 personnel.
"Thunder Bay is among our busiest destinations. Our decision to base crew here and add flights allows us to better serve this growing market and attract team members who value the northern lifestyle," president and CEO of Porter Airlines Robert Deluce said.
The Canadian regional specialist currently operates 38 weekly round trips between Thunder Bay and Toronto City Centre but will add a further seven flights per week as of April 12, 2018. All services are operated with Dash 8-400s.
Despite the fact that Porter is the only major airline which bases its crew members out of Thunder Bay, the largest operator at the airport is Air Canada with 47 weekly departures and 29.6% market share by capacity. Smaller regional carriers, including Bearskin Airlines, North Star Air (Ontario), and Wasaya Airways also base their crews out of Thunder Bay.
