Changes coming to Buttonville Airport

After 60 years, Toronto’s Buttonville Municipal Airport is in its final descent.

Once poised on the fringes of the city, the small regional airport where thousands of pilots earned their wings is now in the direct path of encroaching development.

The airport in northwest Markham at the corner of Highway 404 and 16th Avenue — about 30 kilometres north of Toronto’s downtown core — will cease operations on Nov. 30.

“I wish we could say that it would stay open a lot longer, but the value of the land now is just so much,” said flight instructor and commercial pilot Mark Brooks, who has flown out of Buttonville since 1995.

Brooks calls the closure a “huge hit” for students at the Canadian Flyers College and employees of the airport. Seneca’s School of Aviation previously operated out of Buttonville for 45 years before moving to Peterborough.

He says the shutdown has brought widespread frustration from pilots who have long been calling for private investors to build a new airport elsewhere. But there’s been little movement, he says.

The loss of the Buttonville training ground will be deeply felt, he says.

“Buttonville has produced hundreds and hundreds of commercial pilots that are flying for WestJet, Porter and Air Canada,” he said.

The airport is also home to business and utility aircraft that service the city, including police and air ambulances.

Kirill Chatrov has been flying out of Buttonville for the last decade, first as a student and now a private pilot. Depending on weather, Chatrov is taking off from Buttonville two or three times a week.

“We’ve all been anticipating the closure for a very long time. I found the news a little bit shocking because, you know, the timeline between now and the closure is quite short,” he said.

Chatrov is considering Oshawa and Brampton airports for a new home base, but said it will increase his commute time from Richmond Hill.

Not everyone is sad about the looming closure.

City councillor Ritch Lau, who also learned to fly at Buttonville, says while the shutdown is disappointing, it is also a relief for residents who were worried about safety after recent emergency landings on highways.

In January, a small aircraft crashed onto 16th Avenue between Woodbine Avenue and Highway 404. The plane went off the end of a runway at Buttonville and onto 16th Avenue with two people aboard, according to the Transportation Safety Board. No injuries or deaths were reported.

In 2021, another small, single-engine plane taking off from Buttonville landed on the eastbound lanes of Highway 407 near Woodbine Avenue.

Nav Canada closed the airport’s air traffic control tower in 2019 due to a decline in traffic in recent years. The decision from the not-for-profit that runs Canada’s air traffic control system sparked concerns from pilots.

Still, Lau said Buttonville airport is a landmark to both the area and the aviation industry.

“It really gave birth to many, many pilots like recreational pilots and commercial pilots. This is where every pilot started in the GTA so this is going to be a place that will be missed by aviation folks.”

The Buttonville Flying Club has been pushing for development of big city airports for more than a decade, says Brooks, underscoring the need for “new infrastructure with room to grow and support aviation safety in the GTA.”

With files from Yoyo Yan of Markham Economist & Sun