Podcast: Derrick Stanford On A Turbulent Period For The Region’s Airports, But Hopefully Sunny Skies Ahead
Atlantic Canada’s airports got more bad news last week with WestJet indefinitely suspending service to Moncton and Fredericton and cutting back on service to Halifax and St. John’s, a result of Covid-19 and the travel restrictions in the Atlantic Bubble.
Derrick Stanford, the CEO of the Saint John Airport and president of the Atlantic Canada Airports Association, joins host Mark Leger on this week’s episode of Huddle “Home Office” to talk about why airports are an essential part of a robust, growing economy, and how we can do more to support them.
Before joining the airport, Derrick worked in the software industry and says the airport allowed him to live here, with a great quality of life, but serve clients scattered across the continent.
“When I was travelling all over leading the sales organization for various software companies, what made living in New Brunswick amazing is I could be anywhere in North America for lunch,” he tells Mark. “I could leave on the early flight, and could be L.A., Vancouver, Phoenix, Calgary, New York City, Chicago, or Orlando, all easily before lunch. A lot of my clients didn’t even know I was in New Brunswick.”
That selling feature is not something the region can afford to lose, as it seeks to grow the population and economy. There has been much talk of late that people could move here, escape the busy centres with high Covid infection rates, and enjoy the kind of life that Derrick had built for himself in the software industry.
Derrick says that can’t happen if Covid-19 and the stringent protections we’ve put in place make it impossible to rebuild the industry. He talks about how to save an industry very much in peril if we don’t change course. Some of the solutions, he says, involve increased federal funding for airports and finding safe ways to reduce the 14-day quarantine period.
“It was having access to safe, modern reliable air transportation that made that [kind of life] possible,” he says.
Listen to the interview with Derrick in the player above or tune in on one of many podcast platforms.
The Huddle “Home Office” podcast – available on Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher and Apple podcast platforms – features conversations with New Brunswick and Nova Scotia community leaders, entrepreneurs, analysts and Huddle reporters about the issues and events that accelerate and enrich the growth of the region’s economy and culture.
Check out the Huddle podcast archive for more conversations about the Atlantic Canadian economy, which include feature interviews with regional leaders like Frank McKenna, Blaine Higgs, Marcel LeBrun and David Alston.
And please go to your favourite podcast platform, search for “Huddle Huddle Office” and subscribe.