Porter Airlines’ departure from the Ottawa International Airport has cleared the runway for a third party to run a communal lounge in the space left behind.
The Ottawa International Airport Authority confirmed to OBJ that Porter has closed its travellers’ lounge at YOW roughly a decade after it first opened.
In an email to its frequent flyers, Porter said it made the decision to close the lounge this past weekend because most travellers were opting to take earlier flights to Toronto at no cost rather than wait at the airport.
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There’s a particular image that David Gilbert, President of Ottawa-based Paterson Group, is delighted to share. It’s a map of the Ottawa area and beyond covered with thousands of dots,
“This benefit, combined with our high frequency of flights, means most travellers didn’t have a lot of airport downtime,” the email read. Porter operates approximately 15 daily flights from Ottawa to Toronto during the week, according to the airport’s departure schedule.
The 3,700-square-foot lounge space had capacity for 90 seats. With Porter out of the picture, a YOW spokesperson told OBJ the airport will soon launch a request for proposals looking to bring in a “third-party, common-use lounge operator.”
