After eight years of pitching to the Federal government’s transportation ministry, a major deal has booked a ticket with the Prince George Airport.
YXS is receiving a $2.3 million rehab investment for one of its runways (01-19) and two other aprons used for both commercial flights and exporting Canadian goods to global markets, like Asia.
YXS CEO John Gibson was relieved to hear the good news this morning, even giving a loud shout heard across the arrival gates.
He said this project will create up to 40 local jobs during the upgrades.
“The only jobs that are outside of Prince George will be the engineering positions, but all the rest of them, the asphalt plants, the construction jobs on the runway, and the general management of the projects, are all here.”
Parliamentary Secretary to the Federal Minister of Transport, Terry Beech was on hand to make the formal announcement, which is set to reduce congestion and bottlenecks in one of Canada’s most integral trade corridors.
“We’ve just signed these recent trade deals, and those trade deals are only available to us if we can get our goods to market,” explained Beech.
“When we talk about what’s happening with the Asian Gateway Corridor, and we see what’s happening outside of Metro Vancouver in places like Prince George, there’s a lot of exciting things happening up here and this project is going to be an important part of that as well.”
.@FlyYXS receiving $2.3M from #cdnpoli to rehab airport facility & infrastructure; this includes repairing runway & 2 aprons to “maximize capacity” | #CityOfPG @mypgnow pic.twitter.com/aFcvCea3jw
— Kyle Balzer (@KyleBalzer) October 23, 2018
Gibson added his top priority when it comes to improving airport facility or runway conditions are passenger, worker, and export safety.
“If we don’t rehabilitate them, then we’re going to lose them, which then is a much bigger cost after rebuilding. It acts as a taxiway for most of our commercial operations and forms a triangle with the other two runways. So the equipment can cycle around those runways and cut down the amount of taxi time that you need, and for snow removal equipment, it allows the equipment to stay on the runway longer.”
The upgrades are expected to be completed by October next year (2019).
The funding is part of Canada’s National Trade Corridors Fund, an 11-year, $2 billion funding.
.@FlyYXS CEO John Gibson is grateful that after 8 years of personal pitching this idea to #cdnpoli; “With today’s announcement, the Northern trade corridor is a really good trade investment opportunity for PG” | #CityOfPG @mypgnow pic.twitter.com/caR8mKQTVC
— Kyle Balzer (@KyleBalzer) October 23, 2018