Muskoka Airport

4 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 10, ISSUE 7 O’Connor gave an operational overview of the airport. “It’s a large population, with a strong economy,” O’Connor informed. “Tourism is at the top of the list. We have a large population of second- home owners. We have the business aviation community for the airport as well. We are attracting some large, well-known companies from throughout the U.S. and Canada.” He continued that the Muskoka Airport has been around since 1933. It was also set up during World War II as a training facility for the Norwegian pilots training for missions against Nazi Germany. When the Nazis occupied Norway, hundreds of Norwegians managed to escape to Canada. In the airport’s terminal, a little museum called “Little Norway” is dedicated just for this chapter of history. “As the years went by,” O’Connor elaborated, “the airport catered to the second-home owners and transporting people to wealthy cottages. For a small airport, it’s probably one of the busiest Tetra Tech’s scientists and engineers are developing sustainable solutions for the world’s most complex projects. With over 3,500 employees in Canada and 27,000 associates worldwide, we offer services to the aviation industry, spanning the entire project life cycle. tetratech.com Leading with Science ® in airports and aviation Contact: Daniel Qian +1 (403) 723-6946 daniel.qian@tetratech.com for jet traffic during the summer months. For the recreational pilots, we have another hangar going up just to accommodate hangar space for the smaller airplanes. We also have a new flight school that just came in here, and they are working on their final stages of getting the certification to operate out of this airport as a flight school. So, there’s lots going on here. We are excited. Spectrum Airways––they are in charge of the new flight school. We are doing well, considering the pilot shortages since COVID-19 hit.” Master plan In terms of operations, O’Connor said that there is an airport master plan in place. “It was approved in 2021,” he said, “and that’s to take the airport from where it is now through the next 20 years. It basically provides us a path, where we can move along and grow the airport for developments, not just in hangars but in all aspects of the airport. And we tie it into the economic impact.”