John F. Kennedy said that 55 years ago and its relevance today is…well, what doesn’t it apply to?
Elections. Motivations. Medications. Vaccinations. Resignations.
Everything.
But I want you to consider JFK’s idea in terms of…Toronto Pearson International Airport.
In 2019, Pearson was the best airport serving over 40 million passengers annually in North America.
By 2022, coming out of the pandemic, it was the worst airport for flight delays in the world. That summer, over half of all flights at Pearson were delayed.
Then in 2023 and again last year, Pearson was judged the best airport over 40 Million Passengers in North America – by travelers while they are actually in the airport.
What changed? Everything, from improving its passengers’ digital pathway, to investing billions in LIFT, the Long-Term Investment in Facilities and Terminals that will grow, restore and future-proof Pearson.
What didn’t change is our opinion of Pearson changing to meet reality.
It would serve us all well to make that adjustment. Because at a time when we’re all elbows up for Canada, our biggest airport can play an outsize role in securing our future.
Pearson’s CEO, Deborah Flint, last week presented her first State of the Airport Address at the Empire Club.
She was recruited here one month into the pandemic from LAX where she led Los Angeles World Airports for four years. She’s on the board of Honeywell, on the Airports Council International World Board, and is the Board Chair of the World Standing Safety and Technical Committee. She’s all business and all charm. So when she says she wants to change Pearson from a place you have to fly from to one you want to fly from, you listen.
We who live here often forget how big Pearson is, how very big its economic importance is, and how fast it’s growing:
- It serves 199 destinations, making it North America’s most internationally connected airport. Last year, 7 new airlines joined Pearson, also the most of any airport on the continent.
- 60% of Canada’s international passengers fly through Pearson, and 50% of the country’s air cargo goes in and out of there.
- The Pearson Economic Zone employs 500,000 people in 18,000 businesses (second only to downtown Toronto), churning out $70 billion in GDP each year.
- Those half million workers are 100,000 more than in 2016. Two thousand of them work at the new Bombardier Aerospace plant at Pearson to build the Global 7500, the biggest and fastest private jet in the air. Only 10 countries in the world have airplane manufacturing plants at a major airport.
But Pearson, like our public transit, high-speed rail and military, is way behind in investing in infrastructure. For one, it needs more gates to accommodate the 85 million passengers who will use it by the mid-2030s.
It also needs cleaner bathrooms.
Deborah Flint pointed out that you could clean them every hour of every day and they’d still feel drab and dirty. That’s because they’re old. Terminal design, construction and technology have advanced centuries in the past decade, but not at Pearson.
Flint also talked about the volatility of air travel. After every shock, from 9/11 to COVID and closed borders, not only does air travel come back, it increases every time. This must have something to do with our interwoven economies and people’s universal need to connect.
True, I won’t forget as we emerged from COVID those long delays as planes started flying again, and the even longer lines of luggage left for us to pick up at the baggage conveyors.
But thinking back, I also suspect Pearson wasn’t the real culprit. It was the airlines and the baggage handlers.
So let’s not wag our fingers in the wrong direction.
Instead, how about we change our minds where change is overdue?
Most of all, let’s not hold our heads down, grimly gritting our teeth, when we make our way through Pearson. Instead, let’s look up and own our big airport the way we’re owning our big country.
As Deborah Flint concluded: “There are many brilliant ideas disguised as complaints.”
Meanwhile…
1. Gloria gets sick on the bus on Mondays. That’s what I thought “Sic transit gloria mundi” means. Here’s what it really means.
In other U.S. news: You know that Senator Cory Booker spoke this past week for a record 25 hours non-stop (not even a pee break) against the Republicans. Heather Cox Richardson offered up the best critique of what his 200,000 words meant.
Also, here’s editor Jeffrey Goldberg and historian Anne Applebaum on what the Signalgate scandal means… and here’s who Robert Kennedy wants to study the links between autism and vaccinations…and here’s a voice of America who was silenced when Washington shut down Voice of America, and one of the Three Musketeers, the Yale professors who decamped to the University of Toronto. And there’s a new group of Trump supporters: trillionaires. Bookmark their website…plus, how fear doesn’t make cowards of our worst selves, but our best. Speaking of best, JD Vance had the worst time of it in Greenland.
2. I don’t normally brag about my expensive trips. But I just got home from the supermarket.
3. Popular mechanics. How twisted threads hold heavy things. Science is building a cat database. Silica gel has taken over the world. How the sun sets on the surface of the moon. How plants flower according to the laws of math. And what happens when you deny the laws of gravity – and when you just push them to the limit.
4. Politics is war by other means. Here’s what Justin’s doing now, plus the back-story on the ‘ruthless tactician’ who’s guiding Poilievre. And Mark Carney on negativity. Plus how Carney and Poilievre’s resumes compare. And what writer and innkeeper Susan Musgrave tells her guests.
5. Deadlifting in your 90s. An unusual powerlifter trains for competition. The “goddess of the piano” stays silent. And Carl Jung allays our fear of death.
6. Trends to embrace or flee from. Private ski clubs are having a moment. Disabled astronauts are cleared to fly. High-quality clothing deserves a second look. What happens when personal health runs up against public health. Measuring GDP is so last year. And dating is not an impulse; it’s a skill.
7. The New Yorker (finally) gets a new style guide. Every 100-year-old deserves a refresh, and last week the magazine that still uses the dieresis and spells teenager “teen-ager” and inbox “in-box” announced it’s updating its style guide. As The New York Times noted, “The revolution arrived in two squat paragraphs containing two diereses, [those two dots above the ‘e’ in reëxamination], three em dashes and four pairs of parentheses.”Reaction to the change was…complex.
8. Good things to do. The Luminato Festival just announced its program from June 4 to 22. Buy early, save big.
Also, rumour has it that it’s spring. Which means planting trees, which you can do with Trees for Life whose volunteers plant over half a million trees each year. Here are their southern Ontario tree planting events.
And if you’re asking what you can do in the great trade war, come to the meeting of Elbows Up Toronto on Monday, April 7 at Metropolitan United Church at Queen and Church. Doors open at 6:30 p.m.
9. Drinking too much? There’s a flood of apps promising they can help you reduce your drinking – without stopping drinking. They offer what most over-drinkers crave: privacy. Because most drinkers lie about how much they drink. Here’s a taste: From Reframe and Hypnozio, to This Naked Mind and Sunnyside. Getting California Sober can be fun!
10. Firsts and bests. Researchers at McMaster University have discovered the first new class of antibiotics in 30 years that can beat drug-resistant bacteria. Lariocidin may go far in reducing the number of people who die – now 4.5 million each year – from antimicrobial resistance.
Plus, the best books of the 21st century – so far. And The Carol Shields Shortlist.
was announced this week. The Carol Shields Prize is given each year for the best novel written by a woman or non-binary writer in Canada or the US.