YXS Now Designated Tech Stop…Just Needs Planes
Friday, May 18, 2012 @ 3:59 AM
Prince George, B.C. – The Prince George Airport Authority has jumped another hurdle in its efforts to become a “tech/refuelling stop”. It has been designated as a “tech stop” , which means it is now included in the manuals which list all the “designated” tech stops for airlines. “We were not in any of those manuals in the past, but we are as of this week” says PG Airport Authority Board Chair Jim Blake.
The PGAA continues to chip away at many of the obstacles standing in the way of achieving that tech stop goal. The fuel storage system is expected to be operational this summer, Canada Borders Services has increased it hours and the Airport has been added to the flight manuals as a designated tech stop.
“Once the fuel farm is established, we will have everything in place to service tech stops” says Blake. He adds that four Asian airlines have expressed an interest in using YXS as their tech stop and positive news on that front could come as early as 2013.
That being said, Airport Authority Chair Jim Blake says there are still issues which need to be overcome.
First, with Asian cargo flights down by 1% over the past year, the traffic over the Anchorage airport, is not as congested as it has been, so Anchorage remains a preferred tech stop despite the fact Prince George is closer to the Asian markets.
The Canadian dollar is holding steady over the U.S. dollar, meaning it is more expensive to land here now than it was when the runway expansion was underway and the Canadian dollar was only worth 65 cents against the U.S. dollar.
The NAV Canada fees remain a major cost deterrent. Airport CEO John Gibson is currently in Ottawa taking part in an industry roundtable discussion aimed at creating a vision for the future of the aviation industry in Canada. Blake says with the high NAV Canada fees, airlines say it is just too expensive to use Canadian airports, and millions of Canadians are making their travel plans out of U.S. airports where airlines can offer cheaper fares because of the cheaper airport fees. “We (Canadian airports) are simply too expensive” says Blake.
The airport saw a 3.1% increase in passenger traffic in 2011, with more than 402 thousand people going through the gates.
Other positives to note for YXS include the renegotiating of the loan with the NDI Trust ( loan was for the runway expansion) which will save the PGAA $277 thousand dollars in interest payments. The Airport Authority finished 2011 with a 13% increase in its surplus as airport revenues outstripped expenses.
Comments
Good luck with that
Just need planes.
Kind of like Crater city potholes just needing cars.
”Kind of like Crater city potholes just needing cars”
now, thats funny.
Another possible headline:
YXS Could Be Designated A Tech Stop…JUST NEEDS LONGER RUNWAY
Which one is better?
Maybe Mr. Blake could convince his politician friends to build the worlds tallest wooden air traffic control tower. People will flock to PG from all parts of the world to see it……….
It is a huge mistake on the part of IPG to shift their focus to the downtown core and away from something that could bring jobs to the area.
Downtown will remain virtually unchanged unless the city sees a significant population growth. Pouring public funds into the area may cause a business or two to relocate from another part of town but there is no net gain or any new jobs(read taxpayers).
Once the fueling station is complete it should be all hands on deck to sell the airport to the various airlines. Millions of dollars has been spent on the runway, logistics park and Boundary Road projects and it should not be left to just the Airport Authority to do the sales pitch.
IPG has done a good job of producing a prospectus on what we have to offer but it will be wasted if they are directed by city hall to concentrate on the downtown core.
http://www.initiativespg.com/Documents/2012TranspacificLogisticsProspectusWeb-EN.pdf
From what I understand it really is the Nav Canada tech stop fees holding the airport back. This applies not only to PG but Canada. Apparently tech stops are not good business any where in Canada because of the landing fees that are far higher than the US.
So we need the feds to acknowledge this is an area to pay attention to.
But to be devils advocate, we focused on a business that no one is able to do well on in Canada?
Let hope we turn out to be the trail blazers in this business in Canada.
Order lots of fuel conditioner because the fuel in those tanks will be quite stale after a few years.
Remember during the Second World War when the British built “pretend” planes out of wood and canvas to attract enemy bombers to waste their bombs? Well maybe the guys at our airport could build “pretend” cargo planes to make the airport appear busy thereby attracting foreign carriers. Kinda like duck decoys. Could work.
Might help if they put the price of their fuel on a “huge” billboard so the pilots cruising at 35,000 ft. can read it. That would be one huge ass sign! Any way to attract business.
Once again why would they come here? Don’t they have fuel in Edmonton, Calary, Vancouver, Alaska,…………. No reason to stop here at all.
NoWay: “Once again why would they come here? Don’t they have fuel in Edmonton, Calary, Vancouver, Alaska”
Exactly. If you had the choice of where to stop, where would Prince George fall on this list? Pretty low, I’d imagine.
Keep paying those $15 Airport Improvement fees everyone.
There is potential for Prince George to become a supply chain/logistics center. As the container port at Prince Rupert grows there will be a need for an inland port and warehouses will be built to fill the need. This ties in directly with cargo plane traffic and stuffing facilities.
We are located on a more direct route between Asia and the eastern US than Anchorage, Edmonton or Calgary. If the landing fee playing field can be leveled, the airlines could actually save fuel by landing here.
Anchorage has almost 600 planes a week and if we can pry some of that away it will mean new good paying jobs.
Now that all the pieces are starting to fall in place, it is stupid for IPG to take their eye off the ball and quit actively promoting this project.
Lets see when the expansion was planned and secured the economy was good and the dollar low, right. Then the economy tanked thanks to the banksters and the dollar went up right. Now all you naysayers for saw that right and made millions, ya right.
Snowed today that carbon tax sure is working.
Seamutt:
The obstacles Mr. Blake speaks of have always been there. High landing fees,higher fuel costs and stiff competition. If they did not see a backlash coming from the Americans they are bigger fools than I predicted. The business case for this project was probably written on the cover of a match pack in a seedy lounge after S.H. convinced J.B. what a great idea this is. As I said in the very beginning…I hope they prove me wrong, but building this project is an opeum pipe dream. Mirabel West.
I assume that the unit cost for landing at Canadian airports is considerably higher than in the USA. They have ten times the population with probably far more than ten times the number of movements than we do.
2009 figures uo to #36 because that is the last Canadian airport in the top 50.
Those are total movements for both passenger and cargo planes.
1HartsfieldâJackson Atlanta International Airport970,235
2O’Hare International Airport827,899
3Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport638,782
4Los Angeles International Airport634,383
5Denver International Airport607,019
6George Bush Intercontinental Airport538,168
7Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport525,314
8McCarran International Airport511,064
9Charlotte/Douglas International Airport509,448
10Beijing Capital International Airport488,505
11Philadelphia International Airport472,668
12London Heathrow Airport466,393
13Frankfurt Airport463,111
14Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport457,207
15Barajas Airport435,179
16Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport432,589
17Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport432,395
18John F. Kennedy International Airport416,945
19Newark Liberty International Airport411,607
20Toronto Pearson International Airport407,352
21Amsterdam Airport Schiphol406,974
22Phoenix Deer Valley Airport (Business airport)402,335
23Munich Airport396,805
24San Francisco International Airport379,751
25Salt Lake City International Airport372,300
26LaGuardia Airport354,594
27Miami International Airport351,417
28Van Nuys Airport (Business airport)351,285
29Mexico City International Airport348,306
30Logan International Airport345,306
31Washington Dulles International Airport340,367
32Memphis International Airport338,973
33Tokyo International Airport335,716
34Leonardo da Vinci Airport324,497
35Seattle-Tacoma International Airport317,873
36Vancouver International Airport313,984
8 of the top 10 are USA airports. The others are Beijing and Paris.
YXS Now Designated Tech Stop…Just Needs Planes
At Canadian rates,what airline would be daft enough to stop here?
And in the flight manual there will be the addition, Too expensive, reroute.
Why are our NAV fees higher than those in the States?
Sadly, everything costs more in Canada than the US, not just airport fees.
middle finger not at the time.
One has to go back to the establishment of the Airport Authoritys to see whats actually taking place here.
The Airport Improvement fee money generated at the PG Airport can only be spent on Airport Improvements. The Fee for the Pr George Airport is $18.00 every time you buy an airline ticket to Vancouver. This Fee generates over 1 1/2 million dollars per year for the Airport.
Once Pr George was established as an Airport Authority. (The last one of 26 in Canada at the time) it started to spend the money from the AIF on Airport Improvements, as follows.
1. Millions of dollars on the upgrade to the terminal building
2. Increase in parking spaces from 300 to 500.
3. Then the big one. Runway expansion for a cost of $36 Million dollars. 11 Million from the Feds, 11 Million from the Province, and 11 Million borrowed from the Northern Development Initiative Trust. $3 Million from ??
4. We then moved on to the establishment of the Airline Fueling Facility (Northwest area of the Airport). (Which has never been used except for a photo op).
5. We are now in the process of putting in 4 huge fuel tanks to store fuel for various airlines. (I beleive that this fuel facility will be operated by a local distributor and will distribute gas, diesel, and jet fuel throughout the interior. Who knows if any International Flights will ever land)
6. We then moved the facilities inside the Terminal Building for West Jet.
7. We then renovated the Airport Lounge, and established a new restaurant.
So. All the improvements are being paid for by the Airport Improvement Fees charged to people who fly. Problem is none of the money spent has made any significant difference in regards to the amount of money generated by the Airport.
In fact at this point in time I dont beleive that YXS has paid any lease fee’s to the Federal Government for the facilities at the Airport because they have not as yet made any money on the actual operation of the Airport. In addition when they talk about saving $277,000.00 in interest payments what they really mean is that they were supposed to start paying interest payments to Northern Trust this year, and have now had these payments set back to begin around 2015. So if you dont have to pay your interest on your loan you can show some increase in revenue.
There was an increase in operating revenue of $115000.00 but this is peanuts, when you are looking at the overall operation. I suspect if they had to pay their leasing fees like other Airports the picture would not be so bright.
With the advent of non stop flights New York to Bejing, etc; its not likely that any passenger jets will need to refuel either here or at Anchorage. However Cargo Jets like to land at Anchorage because there are facilitys there for cargo distribution etc; Furthermore they can take a full payload of Cargo to Anchorage, and then refuel. However if you are going to fly Asia to Prince George, in order to have enough fuel to get here you would have to leave Cargo behind. No sane Cargo Transportation Co., would do that.
If the PG Airport were to admit that this whole operation was a **bust** they would have to go back to running the Airport as is, and reduce the AIF back to $5.00 . Problem is they now have this $11 Million debt to pay off, and they keep spending money, so we will not see a reduction in this fee in our lifetime. Nor will be see a viable, cost effective, International passenger, or cargo service.
So in essence we have been hoodwinked, by the Federal Government, the Provincial Goverment, the Airport Authority. We now have a huge debt to pay off, and a huge AIF to pay every time we fly.
Under the old system the Airport was run by a Manager, with staff, and handled the same traffic, etc; as it does to-day, however the cost was paid for by the Federal Government under an Airport Tax System.
We should have never gone down this road. We were told by Calgary Airport that it wouldnt work. The Americans will not co-operate with us, because they want the business in Anchorage. We are now left with the possibility of getting some traffic to the Southern US, or to South America, however that remains to be seen.
In addition. When you consider that any fuel sold goes to the Oil Companies like Shell Oil, and the NavCan fees go to Navcan for its operating costs. How are we to turn this situation around?? I dont think we can. I think that once again we are stuck with the proverbial **White Elephant**
Have a nice week-end.
I was getting worried, Palupud rants about the airport daily on completely unrelated stories so it is suprising it took so long to hit his soapbox on this one. Yawn
interceptor, it might be the same rant, but so far, he’s been right on this issue.
Nice to see your awake interjector.
Have a nice day.
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