still dreaming I see….

And with Calgay’s extended runway opening this year a dream may be all that they have.

Meanwhile the largest shipping company in town just decided to close its doors in Northern BC…. Lots of new buzz words in the jingoism though.

C5 Galaxy, Antonov, and a DC10 all landed here before the expansion. As a matter fact CPAir used to run charters to Mexico with a DC10 back in the day. So nothing really new here!

I don’t know John, maybe “free landing fees Thursdays”, or “half price fuel Fridays”. You have my permission to use these ideas. ;)

While I am not optimistic, I would be happy to see the airport’s plans to expand service succeed. Best of luck. Unfortunately, I think you are going to need all the luck you can get

The Anontov and Galaxy where designed for shorter runways being military designs but not efficient long haulers. Remember when the Chinese boatpeaple were flown out of here? A 747 was used to fly them back to China but it could not takeoff with enough fuel because of the shorter runway length . It landed at whitehorse to fuel for the flight, longer runway.

The DC-10 most likely would have had it’s take off weight restricted.

I love all the positive posts..lol.

I didn’t know we had all these experts on air travel.

Have a great weekend everyone.

Dreams? The ultimate would to be to have manufacturing services adjacent to Boundary Rd with direct access to the airport apron for transport of products on these big jets for delivery world wide.

You might not be that far off the mark doogood, but its more fun to let all of the airport haters spew their air freight “expertise” on here ;)

For a town that is trying to promote itself as a service and supply hub for industry and resource companies, I find it amazing that virtually every time I go into one of the wholesalers for a part that is not a part that would be available at the local hardware store, they have to order it. Not only that, they order it out of Van or Edmonton which in turn orders it out of the States or Eastern Canada. Any company that would have to order its’ parts will simply go directly to the supplier and cut out the businesses in town. The only supplier that looks like it may be thinking of expanding its’ warehouse space is Fastenal on the Hart.

So the $20 a flight airport improvement fee will be spent doing this instead of improving passenger traffic. Why is disabled parking down a flight of stairs ? Why isn’t it covered parking so the snow isn’t packed so deep between the cars ?

P Val ….. obviously you are only an expert in posting useless opinion.

Actually you have known that we have all the experts here ever since you started to look and then post.

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This is what I have to say about the topic.

1. who is building the facility?

2. how much will it cost?

3. what does starting mean?

4. what does “expecting” to be finished next year mean? That could be almost a 23 month project. December 2015 is a long way away.

5. where can I see an image of what will be built?

This full project is taking so long, I would love to see a short time line of when this whole project started and how long it will take to get it to the first consistent activity for which all of this is being built. It seems to me it will be at least 10 years.

Not much info coming from the airport board and management. I do not know why these short, useless burps that leave people speculating as to what is really happening.

There, there is my expertise…… just another question from the peanut gallery since I did not find a program at the door when I came in to watch the play..

5.

Seek and ye shall find.
http://www.pgairport.ca/Airport_Info/media_releases/oct_22_2010.php

from that link:
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The Prince George Airport Authority announces a multi-tenant cargo facility project to begin this fall.

Posted: OCTOBER 22, 2010

Western Star Ventures Ltd. is in the final design stages of developing a multi-tenant cargo cross-dock facility adjacent to the north-end fueling apron and the recently announced fuel farm at the Prince George Airport.

Gary Jardine, President of Western Star Ventures Ltd says “Construction is planned for this fall and will be completed by the end of summer 2011”.

Jardine explained, “Western Star Ventures Ltd and its subsidiaries have been in airport property development since 1992 and have completed two hangar facilities at the Springbank Airport in Calgary, Alberta.”

This new facility will be designed for cargo storage, inspection and transshipment as well as equipment staging for north end operations. The 25,000 sq ft facility will also offer inspection and administration space for the Canada Border Services Agency and other on airport service providers.

John Gibson, CEO, Prince George Airport Authority explained, “This development is the first multi-tenant facility to be built on the north end.” Gibson added, “It is a critical piece of infrastructure which should be a catalyst for future growth and development.”
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So that was then ….. today is 3.5 years later and the same project is being announced.

What was the hold up? Do some of those who are talking about haters of the airport have the answer? Do you think we should be getting an answer?

As far as I know the airport fees paid by passengers do not pay for that. Maybe someone with some level of expertise could confirm or deny that.

However, the departure end of the airport was supposed to be getting a “facelift” to match the remainder of the passenger terminal, along with some additional space so that there is enough space at departure time to handle the people.

Oh, do I dare add my non-expert observation that with smaller planes flying the same number of passengers or even slightly more, the congestion should be reduced.

Does anyone of the “friends of the airport group, so don’t cross us” know who Western Star Ventures Ltd is? They have a business license and referred to themselves as general contractors.

Other than that, they are conspicuously absent on the web – i.e. they do not have a corporate web page which tells prospective clients what they have done and what services they can provide. Must be a goode olde fashioned word of mouth operation.

I heard a rumor that the capacity of the fueling station right now is one big jet. Does anyone have fact about this.

Maybe YXS should take out a Kijiji ad, looking for planes to land here.

From what I can tell, the airport has been long on promises and so-called ‘dreams’ and short on deliverables for the last few years now, unless you count the small ‘burps of information’ as gus puts it.

I have seen the AIF skyrocket in the past few years, and not much else. If this all makes me a naysayer, then so be it.

Hmm… interesting… I thought “flogging a dead horse” was just an expression!

I suspect if the cargo side of the operation as well as the dream of getting passenger jets that require the longer runway to land here on a regular weekly basis were consolidated and run as a private business, the business would have gone bankrupt some years ago and would have been sold to the lowest bidder or completely shut down with all loans sitting in default at 5 cents on the dollar, if that.

But it is not. Someone is bankrolling that side of the operation. Who is that? If it is the taxpayers, we need to know some details that go beyond beefed up annual reports.

If someone were to be flogging a dead horse, the BC SPCA would want to know about it.

Yeah NoWay they can land here at the old airport runway, in fact most planes could. Problem comes in takeoff. The DC10 fully loaded is similar to the dry weight of a 747-400. All planes also have different models, for example the DC10-10,20,40 could not take off here on the old runway unless severely restricted in weight, same as the Antonov. If they landed here on the old runway they would be taking off empty with enough pounds of fuel to get to another airport that could handle them.

I know, let’s get a First Nations owned and operated Casino built on the property that used to be the experimental farm (at least that was just an experiment and was never meant to be a real farm).

Direct subsidized flights from anywhere in the north with CMA if you buy at least $500/person worth of certificates only cashable at the Casino/Hotel.

Lol Gus… I guess when you cut and paste others opinions as yours it means something..lol

Pathetic dude

Have a fantastic weekend surfing the net for others opinions…hehehe

WARNING, a cut and paste service is being posted ….. it does actually have some relevance to this issue, unlike what some pothers in the peanut gallery post.

Air Cargo Traffic Down 25 Percent in Anchorage – November 13, 2012
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ANCHORAGE, Alaska — For almost any other city in the world, the amount of cargo traffic that passes through Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport would be great news — but local officials say what they’ve seen is a 25 percent decrease in cargo handled here.

Airport manager John Parrott says the decrease is significant but not that troubling, pointing out that the majority of cargo planes stopping here in Anchorage aren’t unloading but merely refueling. He says that’s actually good news, following a recently built fuel system expansion paid for by the cargo carriers.

“We now have a total of 36 million gallons of fuel storage here at the airport,” Parrott said. “Those airlines would not have made that capital investment unless they were very confident they’re going to be here for a long time and need that fuel.”

Another reason Parrott sees the airport bouncing back from the downslide is because there is nothing faster than flying.

Hey P Val, did you know that Anchorage was down so much in cargo passing through the airport and that most of the planes just fuel up there?

If you did, thanks for not telling us.

So, I assume that the big guys at the airport are flogging the dead horse big time trying to get those who are no longer landing in Anchorage to land here instead once they start increasing the traffic again …. if they will.

Fuel farm ready to go? I suggest WCB take a look at the guard rails on top. Can’t sell fuel cause the meters aren’t proofed. Fuel truck beside the farm looks like it was hauled out of Vietnam. Who’s in charge of that? Does the airport have fueling management to deal with this? There are two fueling companies already on the field why didn’t they act more aggressive to get all this business if it was garunteed to come?

Can’t wait for the Canada winter games to come so we can see how the airport deals with a real amount of volume. This should be really entertaining to watch.

Just my opinion on this.

As the north opens up for more and more exploration into mining and other natural resources where is the most likely spot for the needed equipment to fly into.. PG would be my guess. Guessing this equipment would be considered cargo..lol.

I agree with Gus. We need to know who is building and paying for this warehouse.

A 25000 sq ft warehouse is nothing in the overall scheme of things. In fact it is very small. Who would look after the warehouse and distribution etc;.

Is this facility being built and paid for by money from the Airport Improvement Fee’s.?? Is there a business plan to support building it???

On and on it goes. There was no press release on the Airports Website outlining this project. The last I heard was a RFP went out about a year ago, however no announcements if it was successful.

Where’s the report from IPG that was to be finished in June 2013 outlining what Cargo (if any) that would be available in Prince George for backhaul for these Cargo jets??

Supposedly the cross dock warehouse would be to facilitate handling of perishables from Prince George such as seafood, cherries, and blueberries (according to Al Ridgeway, Director of Cargo Development). Problem with that idea is that these commodities would have to be trucked 500 miles to Prince George to be loaded on a plane. More likely they would be flown out of the area’s where they are produced.

I tried (without any luck) to locate Western Star Ventures back in 2010.

Hopefully we will get a comprehensive announcement from the PG Airport outlining what is actually taking place.

Have a nice day.

Why is it a problem trucking fresh seafood? That is nothing new.

Seafood presumably would be trucked from Prince Rupert, and then flown out of Prince George. The trucking is not a problem, they do it all the time to Vancouver, and other areas.

The problem is that you have to have a plane coming through on a regular basis to make the project viable, or at the very least have a plane that stops here to fuel, that could take the product to the destination that you sold it to.

If you are already flying these products out of Vancouver from around BC why would you change it to Prince George??

I wish they would expand a new covered ramp to get on and off planes, most “normal” airports have these.

If we have 400,000 passengers flying in and out of the airport. if half of it is Out, than 75% of that is going onto westjet or Aircanada. If they charge an extra $15.00 airport tax, It will raise 11 million dollars in three years, this should be able to pay for a covered ramp on and off.

There used to be a trout farm on Cranbrook Hill. They supplied fresh trout to some restaurants in Vancouver. The trout were shipped live, in water, to Vancouver. 10 your trip?

Worked fine logistically, but I assume not economically.

Superstore sell live lobsters from the east cost, as well as mussels, although the mussels from Pencove in Washington are far superior and much closer to ship.
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As far as equipment for mines goes, I am not expecting too much more business from them than we have had in the past. Mines around here are not exactly new business.

We have rail, highway and air for shipping. Other than the odd piece here or there, I expect most of it to come by sea from some other country in Asia or Europe and then be moved to the final destination by road or rail.

Conveyor systems, motors, generators fuel tanks, etc. etc. will be delivered by sea and land for the most part.

If anything is specialized equipment, some of the mechanics servicing them may come by air from the manufacturers’ home base.

Air cariers have established routes already… They have their drop offs spots, they have their fuel up places,and unless PG can give them a VERY VERY good reason to stop here, and I doubt even free fuel will entice them at this point, well maybe free fuel might?, they won’t be stopping here any time soon, they have no reason to stop here…

Blab Blab Blab Yeah until a “Bonded Storage” facility is built at the airport so “in bond goods” can be flown in from other counties, this is just more talk and little action. The airport is still a “security” joke, much more needs to be done to even have major freight carriers consider landing in Prince George, not to mention there needs to be a market demand for them to think about doing so. Lot’s more work to be done yet…..

What do you mean, Professional? That 5 foot high chicken fence around the airport property isn’t secure enough? ;-)

Pretty scary to think actually that someone could quite easily run out onto the runway if they wanted to while a plane was coming in to land.

Fencing no different at Vancouver or Comox airforce base for that matter.

Would be awesome to see the An-225 drop in some day. You never know, worlds largest flying aircraft. Amazing to think Howard Hughes Spruce Goose is still the largest by size and made of wood.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonov_An-225_Mriya

Costco volunteering to sell cheaper jet fuel at the airport? Hmmmm? Worked here in town.