Patrick Lowsier loves to fly his 1963 Piper Cherokee 180.
On Friday, he filled up at the Muskoka Airport in Gravenhurst before picking up his daughter in Burlington.
“This is very important,” he says. “This airport is a must, and I use it every week, and as much as I can.”
The airport has seen some significant changes in recent years.
It has a new 6,000ft long runway that District of Muskoka's Michael Duben says can “handle more than just your small piston craft.”
The district owns the airport, and for years elected officials were in charge, but now it’s in the hands of a board.
The airport costs roughly one-million-dollars a year to operate so the biggest priority of the board is to acquire what’s called a CATSA designation which would help generate more money.
“Hopefully we will be the first ones in the country to get it,” Duben says. “That would allow us to actually bring in security on a fee-for-service basis, and we could then bring in much bigger operations that we have now.”
Last year the airport had more than 13,000 arrivals and departures.
Airport officials hope to see those numbers take off in the coming years.
