JUNE 2017 H business elite canada 5 One great sign? With 85,000 aircraft movements 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 training program out of Red Deer Regional Airport is expected to train upwards of 100 Chinese pilots at a time. Of interest, Montair 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 airport 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 airport—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 economic benefits from those businesses. ULTRA LOW COST CARRIERS Changes in government transportation regulations late last year could also benefit 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 involved in starting up airlines, in order to successfully start up an airline you have to be
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