An island airport reachable by a 90-second ferry ride, or a tunnel
Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport
Toronto's island airport has operated since the 1930s, named for a First World War flying ace, and became a genuine downtown transit option after a regional airline began scheduled jet service in 2006.
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Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport occupies Toronto Island, just offshore from downtown, with operations dating back to the 1930s under various earlier names before being renamed for Billy Bishop, a Canadian First World War flying ace credited with dozens of aerial victories. For decades the airport handled mostly small private and charter aircraft, connected to the mainland only by a short ferry crossing, its downtown-adjacent location largely underused for commercial purposes.
A fight over a bridge, and a new airline
A proposal in the early 2000s to build a fixed bridge connecting the island airport to the mainland became a major municipal political fight, ultimately blocked after newly elected mayor David Miller campaigned against it in 2003. Despite the bridge's cancellation, the airport still grew substantially after Porter Airlines launched scheduled jet and turboprop service in 2006, using the short ferry crossing, and later a pedestrian tunnel completed in 2015, to give downtown Toronto a genuine commercial airport minutes from the financial district — a rarity among major North American cities.
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