[URBAN NOTE] "Buffalo airport courts Toronto travellers"

[rfmcdonald]

The Toronto Star's Vanessa Lu the continuing successful efforts of Buffalo Niagara International Airport to court Canadian travellers on the basis of lower costs.

With millions of Canadians already flocking to U.S. airports in search of cheaper flights, the Buffalo airport is launching a marketing campaign to woo even more passengers.

While Canadian airports and airlines have complained about the millions in lost revenues when travellers head south of the border to catch flights, the Americans see it differently.

“It’s not a negative thing. We have been serving the Canadian market since forever,” said Pascal Cohen, senior marketing manager for the Buffalo Niagara International Airport, who was in Toronto on Tuesday to make his pitch to reporters.

Cohen notes that he, like many other residents of Western New York, will go in the opposite direction, using the Toronto airport to fly to international destinations. “You wouldn’t use the Buffalo airport to go to Abu Dhabi,” he said.

“We’re like conjoined twins,” he argued. “It’s a contiguous marketplace. There just happens to be a border.”