Did you know that, prior to the pandemic, the area surrounding Toronto's Pearson International Airport (officially known as the "Airport Employment Zone") had the second-highest concentration of jobs in all of Canada? Bested only by the financial core of downtown Toronto itself?

According to the Greater Toronto Airports Authority (GTAA), which operates Pearson, some six per cent of all Ontario workers have jobs linked in one way or another to the bustling travel hub.

As of 2018, that translated into about 332,000 jobs across the municipalities of Toronto, Brampton, Mississauga and Peel.

COVID-19 obviously did a number on the air travel industry, resulting in many job losses and business closures throughout the area — but authorities are confident that they can rebuild as the province invests in building out public transit infrastructure to Pearson and new companies set up shop in the AEZ.

One of those companies is Bombardier, the Quebec-based aerospace firm best known for its commercial jets and trains (including Toronto's new streetcars.)

The company announced in December of 2019 that it had signed a deal to relocate its Global Aircraft Final Assembly plant from the Downsview Area to Toronto Pearson International Airport, where it would build a new "cutting edge."

And then the pandemic hit, throwing the entire world for a loop and forcing a pause on such developments across Canada.

Fortunately, and perhaps a bit miraculously, the GTAA confirmed this week that plans are still on track for Bombardier's massive, more than one-million-square-foot manufacturing plant to be complete by its original goal date of 2023.

"Despite the universal slowing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, Bombardier's 'ultra-modern and high-tech' Global Manufacturing Centre is moving full-steam ahead, with the next phase of the massive project slated for completion by the end of November," reports insauga.com.

"The Greater Toronto Airports Authority... says the new facility is expected to create about 3,000 jobs and help to rebuild the Airport Employment Zone."

Many of the jobs inside the plant will be for highly-skilled aerospace engineers and workers, but the plant will also serve surrounding restaurants and cafes with a steady supply of customers, further stimulating the local economy and helping to create even more jobs.

This will no doubt help the GTAA pursue its own "Union Station West," which would (if approved and funded) create a major transit hub cantered around Pearson International Airport.