Airtransit: Canadian Interurban STOL 1973-1976
Airtransit was a joint venture between Air Canada and Transport Canada to test the feasibility of high frequency STOL services between Montreal and Ottawa
Airtransit was a short lived subsidiary of Air Canada established in cooperation with Transport Canada to demonstrate interurban STOL air transport between Montreal and Ottawa. Six DHC-6 Twin Otter aircraft were used with flights running between the cities every 20 minutes. The Twin Otters were equipped with early RNAV and microwave landing system (MLS) equipment to allow them to operate in close proximity to Montreal Dorval Airport.
The Montreal location was the Victoria STOLport which was built on a parking lot that was used for Expo 67. Aircraft departing/arriving to the STOLport would cross over the western approach end of the Dorval runways at 3000 feet for deconfliction. The Ottawa location was the Rockcliffe Airport on the Ottawa River just four miles from the Canadian Parliament complex.
The Victoria STOLport site was chosen due to its proximity to Montreal Dorval (Canada's second busiest commercial airport) and St-Hubert (a busy general aviation airport). The RNAV systems were to allow operations without having to change traffic patterns at either Dorval or St-Hubert.
The operation was subsidized by the Canadian government as it was a demonstration project to look at the feasibility of setting up other interurban STOL routes with Vancouver-Victoria, Edmonton-Calgary and Saskatoon-Regina as leading candidates. Plans were to upgrade the services to Dash 7s as the Twin Otters only had 11 seats, but the slow development of the Dash 7 prevented its use by Airtransit as the first Dash 7 services didn't start until 1978, two years after the end of the Airtransit project.
The project ended in 1976 having been uneconomical combined with Air Canada's lack of enthusiasm for continuing the project which they felt had the potential of skimming lucrative business traffic from the larger airports.