Ontario Express first started operations on July 15, 1987 as a regional feeder airline for Canadian Airlines based at the Toronto Pearson International Airport. It began service to Hamilton in March 1989.[1] This was a way to apply the newly designed commercial aviation strategy at the time: use smaller aircraft to gather passengers from various locations and "feed" the main airline which would then carry those passengers worldwide. The term "feeder airline" became a standard in all commercial aviation. The other term employed was a "spoke and wheel" type of organization, the spoke being the centre where all the feeder airlines would fly in the passengers from around the area. Operations started with 4 Jetstream 31 aircraft, manufactured by British Aerospace. ATR 42 aircraft, built by a Franco-Italian consortium Avions de transport régional, were added to the fleet in 1988. Ontario Express was the first airline to import and operate those 2 aircraft in Canada. The first cities that were connected to Toronto were: Windsor, Sault Ste. Marie, Sarnia, London, Kingston, Thunder Bay, Ottawa, and Sudbury.
References
^DeMont, Philip (1 August 1991). "Ontario Express to leave Hamilton". Toronto Star. p. E2. ProQuest436470995.
Further reading
Oum, Tae Hoon; Stanbury, W.T.; Tretheway, Michael W. (1991). "Airline Deregulation in Canada and Its Economic Effects". Transportation Journal. 30 (4): 4–22. JSTOR20713095.
Marchildon, Lori (2020). The Effects of Airline Acquisitions in the Canadian Airline Industry. 29th Annual Canadian Transportation Research Forum, Vancouver, British Columbia, May 15–18, 1994. doi:10.22004/ag.econ.306063.
Snider, Bradley (2020). Seasonality and Economic Efficiency in the Canadian Airline Industry: Performance in Air Fares Since Deregulation. 29th Annual Canadian Transportation Research Forum, Vancouver, British Columbia, May 15–18, 1994. doi:10.22004/ag.econ.305994.
