now all they need are those nonexistent airplanes to start landing.

On time and on budget, rare to see those words these days. Fine work.

Build it and they will come.
Things take time.
Good on ya.

That’s all we need for a PAC.

Twice the size. Fewer loading docks.

It has nice high ceilings. Great open space inside for totally versatility.

Can probably build 50,000sf for $10million.

Bring you own chairs and intermission drinks.

Get the Airport Authority to manage the contract and it will also come in on time and on budget.

What a joke the airport logistics park is. This isn’t Field of Dreams, we can’t keep taking a “build it a they will come” strategy. Anyone hear of a business plan?

Great news , it is nice to have folks with some vision ,, GOOD LUCK

Firstly this warehouse was built by the Airport Authority because they could not get any private business to spend the money. They have been trying to get a warehouse built for the past 5/6 years.

Having a trucking company move into this space means that someone got a pretty good lease for a long period of time. Notice that there is no mention of the lease arrangements. In any event once the trucking company takes the 15000 sq feet which they will use for their own uses, that just leaves 10000 sq feet less the space for CBSA.

Rosenau Transport has been operating a freight business in Prince George for many years, and in fact moved from leased warehouse space on River Road to this new building at the Airport, which indicates to me that they must have got a pretty good lease.

One has to wonder why an Airport Authority that basically operates as a non profit organization, and generates most if not all of its money for Airport Improvements from the Airport Improvement Fee’s would get into the building and leasing of warehouse space. In fact I suggest that they are very close to operating outside of their mandate.

In any event they effectively took this business away from a private business in Prince George. They are able to do this because they generate funds through the Airport Improvements Fee’s and through landing and take off fee’s. It was never the intent that Airport Authorities would compete with private business using these funds. So there is certainly an issue here.

The Airport Improvement Fee when the Authority was first set up in Prince George in 2005 was $5.00 when you flew out of Prince George, this fee is now $20.00 and the Airport Authority is going to increase it to $25.00 starting in the new year.

Seems to me that IPG was doing a study to see what kind of cargo would be available to fly out of Prince George. There was talk about fruit, fish, live cattle etc;

Has anyone seen or heard anything about this report, or did it get deep sixed along with IPG????

It would be interesting to hear just what cargo is being considered for the planes that may or may not land in Prince George.

My understanding was that these planes would land for fueling (tech stop) and then carry on. I can see them talking some cargo if there was some available, however what is the nature of the cargo, and when might it be available????

Glad to see our negative posters are coming out of the woodwork again instead of seeing something positive all they see is negativity never ever happy are you guys

it is a great plan Dearth, if they had a plan and some indication that this would be utilized… so far a lot of smoke and mirrors and not much else.
So it is not so much negativity as reality.
Same thing with the runway.
We have had nothing land here that needed the extension, and we have had pretty much most the largest aircraft being used land here at one time or another with absolutely no difficulty..
Had they had some airline at least showing interest then maybe we wouldn’t have to question this, or if you prefer be “negative posters”, your words not mine..
But if you know something we don’t I would love to hear it.
until then we have a difference of opinion.

“Did you know that many modern airports now generate most of their revenues from sources other than aviation (by as much as 2:1), and that some are even working toward a dispensation where their operations would be funded from non-aeronautical sources to the extent that airlines would be accommodated for free? The business community should be aware of a quiet revolution that has been taking place: Airport authorities are no longer stale bureaucracies. They have quietly been morphing into what can best be called entrepreneurial landlords. You should talk to them.”

Those words come from the following site:

areadevelopment.com/logisticsInfrastructure/Intermodal-Sites-Q1-2015/airports-strategically-developing-surrounding-lands-2626766.shtml

Time to move from past to present Palopu. What starts at larger airports eventually winds its way down to the smaller ones. Takes a while until small airport managers actually stop saying “that does not apply to us, it just would not work”.

Remember, the terminal building is not owned by the airlines, it is leased by them from the airport authority. In fact, it is not even owned by the airport authority. They just operate it on behalf of the Feds.

I know, it is a complex world we live in. Sometimes it reminds people of “stop the world, I want to get off.” ;-)

“so far a lot of smoke and mirrors and not much else.”

Like watching curling …. or paint dry …. or the Christian-Muslim Crusades …. we are close to starting the 1000 year mark on the latter and still no change.

gopg2015. Don’t confuse modern Airports with Airport Authorities.

There are 26 Airport Authorities in Canada, and their responsibilities are clearly outlined by Federal Government legislation. They have specific rules and regulations that govern their operations, and pay lease payments to the Federal Government.

Because Prince George is the last and perhaps the smallest Airport Authority, and they generate very little revenue, they in fact pay very little in lease payments to the Federal Government. Vancouver on the other hand generates huge revenues, and pays the Federal Government somewhere in the area of $50 Million per year in lease payments.

The problem with Airport Authorities is that they are compelled by legislation to spend the money they receive from Airport Improve Fee’s on (you guessed it) on Airport improvements. So of course over time they start to run out of projects, and start to come up with all sorts of ideas (improvements) that allows them to continue to charge the high fee’s and spend the money on improvements that in a lot of cases are not needed.

As a result people who fly are constantly getting their fares increased to cover these improvement fee costs.

When you look at the under utilized Terminal Building, the under utilized parking lots, the under utilized fuel tank farm, and of course the under utilized runway you start to see that this money could have been better spent, or not spent at all.

Airport Authorities are nothing more than a downloading of the Federal Government responsibilities to operate airports in Canada to unelected, entities, with taxing abilities, who really do not have to report to those they tax.

Smoke and mirrors as mentioned above pretty well covers it.

I think this is another sign of (positive) progress. You can’t wait for the opportunities to knock at your door, and then begin a multi year process to capitalize on them.
Be patient, all of this will eventually pay off.
My opinion.
metalman.

Bcracer says “We have had nothing land here that needed the extension, and we have had pretty much most the largest aircraft being used land here at one time or another with absolutely no difficulty..”

Not true, landing and takeoff are two different operations. Most aircraft can land in a shorter distance than takeoff with the same load.

A loaded 747 freighter would not be able to take off from the shorter runway with a full load. These aircraft do not fly around with partial loads, that increases the cost.

“Don’t confuse modern Airports with Airport Authorities.”

And that means what? You are accusing me of something that I am not doing.

An airport is a facility. An airport authority is one of several management systems. Perhaps you are the one confusing the two.

AIF’s are to be used on improvement of passengers services and facilities only. Building a warehouse and leasing it to tenants does not help passengers services so AIFs cannot be used for that. When they finally get around to improving the departure ticketing and baggage handling area as they had planned many moons ago, the AIF will be paying for that.

You are the one who is confused.

It is also obvious that an airport terminal building has to be designed for maximum loads which normally happen several times a day in PG when two planes arrive and take off at the same time. In between such times one can play shuffleboard in the halls.

Vancouver airport is exactly the same, only on a much bigger scale. When I arrive there in the morning for a meeting the international terminal is practically dead. When I leave in the afternoon to fly back to PG, it is difficult to make my way through the crowds. Every airport has its peak and valleys which depend on where it is located in the local, national and international flight network and schedule patterns.

The airport has land which is sitting idle. As airports grow, and as air transport changes due to changes in commerce, new opportunities open up and old ones may die off. Most businesses are not in the business of real estate, therefore they rent space they need. Transport and warehousing companies fit that pattern as well. Businesses move all the time base on things such as location, size and rental costs. It was obviously time for Rosenau to make a move. It happened in the same fashion in Edmonton.

What everyone seems to forget.

Is that the Airport Authority has no control over the Landing Fees!!

Which are Federally controlled.

haha a lot of people don’t like my comment, but lets look at the facts. They built this for air cargo. Air Cargo is typically used for time sensitive goods. What time sensitive goods do we produce in the area at the quantity required? not much if anything.

Secondly, shipping anything like food, cattle, etc. require to be processed through a federally approved facility, all of which are in the lower mainland or in the edmonton area. Meaning there is no possibility of shipping those goods via air from PG because it would mean having it processed in either Edmonton or Vancouver and then flown out of PG.

Third, air carriers are only granted access to a limited number of canadian airports. If the feds approve them for 4 airports, why would they choose PG over Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary which are sure to generate more opportunity.

This is a pie in the sky project.