2018 was a very fruitful year for the Prince George Airport with over 506,486 passengers coming through YXS, which is a new record.
According to YXS President and CEO, John Gibson, the local airport will be conducting a study this year looking at how much wear and tear the existing terminal will take before expansion is needed.
Gibson also told My PG Now, the number spike allows them to do a few more things.
“One, it gives us a chance to talk to the carriers about more routes and we did get a Calgary flight non-stop with Westjet, which was very well supported, it also puts pressure on the infrastructure we have.”
“It’s good to hit a benchmark like half a million passengers but at the same time over the last two years we’ve had a total of ten percent growth and we can see the economy is really robust.”
He states they would like to add another Mexican sunspot like Cancun or Cabo San Lucas during the winter along with the possibility of flights to Las Vegas, which is a very popular destination for local residents.
Long-haul routes in the summertime to places like Hamilton and Toronto are also being looked at.
As for the upcoming study, Gibson unveils it will overlook the entire operation.
“We’ll look at everything from our check-in counter to the pre-board screening, the holding rooms and the amount of aircraft parking positions that we have – so the whole air terminal building interface with the aircraft is up for discussion.”
When asked about the on-going US Government Shutdown, which has trickled down to Travel Security Agents who either aren’t working or are slugging it out with no pay, Gibson hasn’t seen any negative impacts to local passenger numbers to this point.
“I travelled this past week into the US and had no blowback at all and I’ve heard no blowback, I still think it would be wise to make sure that when you approach US customs that you’re giving yourself some extra time. But, we didn’t give ourselves any extra time with schedules the way they were and we had an hour connection from Prince George to Phoenix and it was handled quite straightforward.”
The airport saw 499,125 passengers come through the doors in 2017.
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