Where would you like to fly? A Brandon University student is researching possible future airline routes from Brandon for her honor’s thesis in Geography, and your travel dreams can make all the difference.
“Brandon has a daily air link to Calgary through Westjet, but where else do people want to fly?” asks Callie Newhouse, a Geography undergraduate student who is conducting the research. “There may not be a big need for direct flights to Toronto, but perhaps there’s another city, south of the U.S. border, that could link to the eastern side of North America and draw a large enough demand. This leads to the possibility of Brandon becoming a small hub for flights, which would generate more business and opportunities for the city as a whole.”
Through a survey, Newhouse is collecting information on where people fly, how often they fly and for what purposes, and whether they would fly more if there were different options available out of the Brandon Municipal Airport, also known as McGill Field.
She plans to run the responses through a geographic information system to plot out maps of the possibilities and she will analyze the results as part of a written thesis. Her final report will be shared with the community.
While the research is being done independently under the guidance of a faculty supervisor, and Newhouse is not working with the airport, the City, or with any airline, Newhouse hopes that her thesis will be interesting and useful to anyone interested in increasing the number of flights landing in Brandon.
“These are hypothetical routes, but the survey could show some surprising results,” she said. “Perhaps there is strong support for cross-border flights that would require a customs office in Brandon.”
The survey is open until Aug. 31, and can be filled in online at https://www.esurveycreator.com/s/a5c3293. It is open to everyone who lives in Brandon or within 100 km, and who is at least 16 years old. The survey is completely anonymous, and individual answers will be kept confidential. It should take no more than 20–30 minutes to complete.
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- communications@brandonu.ca
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