Canada’s Porter Airlines is launching a trio of crew bases staffed with a total of 350 employees to support its growing Embraer 195-E2 operations.
The Toronto-based carrier disclosed on 15 February that planned bases in Ottawa, Montreal and Vancouver will serve as keystones in Porter’s aggressive North American network expansion.
The base in Ottawa will launch in June and will support about 150 pilots and flight attendants. Bases in Montreal and Vancouver are scheduled to open in July and October, respectively, with about 100 employees apiece.
“These new bases will provide significant opportunities for crew who want to live close to where they work,” says Porter’s chief operating officer Kent Woodside. “Local crew can better support Porter’s commitment to operational reliability and ultimately provide an even more elevated level of service for our passengers.”
Porter says that it will operate 14 routes from Ottawa this summer, six from Montreal and three from Vancouver, feeding into the carrier’s well-established network in Eastern Canada and supporting its growing presence on the West Coast of North America.
Formerly a regional carrier serving primarily Eastern Canada and the East Coast of the USA with a fleet of De Havilland Dash 8-400s, Porter has been extending its reach across North America since taking delivery of its first E195-E2s at the end of 2022.
It currently has 650 pilots and 775 cabin crew working at its base at Toronto-Pearson International airport, and anticipates employing 2,000 total crew members by year’s end.
Porter maintains Dash 8 crew bases in Billy Bishop Toronto City airport, Ottawa, Halifax and Thunder Bay.
The carrier also announced on 15 February that it will begin daily E195-E2 flights between Toronto and Saskatoon in May, marking its first-ever flights to the Canadian province of Saskatchewan.
