YXS Rolls Out Annual Report
Prince George Airport CEO and President John Gibson prepares to deliver annual report – photo 250News
Prince George, B.C. – 2015 was a mixed year for the Prince George Airport Authority, and there are still challenges ahead.
At the Airport Authority’s Annual General meeting, it was noted passenger numbers were up 6.1% last year over 2014, a significant number of those passengers were linked to the Canada Winter Games. The increase compares to a 5% increase in passengers at Vancouver International over the same time frame.
On the downside, the loss of the WestJet flight to Calgary and the dropping of its planned extra flight to Vancouver will cost the Airport lost dollars in fees for 2016. The flight cancellations were not part of the Airport’s financial plan for 2016.
The ten year capital rehabilitation plan is pegged at $56 million dollars. “There is no expansion, that’s just rehabilitation of facilities and equipment” says CEO and President John Gibson.
The capital budget for 2016 is $4.6 million and will see asphalt replacement on the apron. Funds for capital improvements can only come from one place says Gibson “Operating earnings have to contribute to capital replacement because we just can’t keep increasing airport improvement fees.” He says parking fees are already at the max, and YXS is already a the max it can charge airlines.
Yet there are some bright spots as CEO and President John Gibson says passenger numbers for the first quarter of 2016 are 1% higher than had been projected.
Another bright spot is the planned cargo flights with a Chinese air carrier. Gibson says a couple of test flights are being arranged for later this summer “We are working with two different Chinese groups, they have to have freight to carry, so the carrier will come in see how things work, and we’ll actually make some revenue at the same time.”
Comments
I am curious as to why there is no jet service from WestJet any longer. Instead we are subject to a ride in a culvert with go cart seats. Every time I was on the plane out of here it was full.
maybe we need to start an airline, that has jet service. we will buy a C series from Bombardier. Prince George to Vancouver, Vancouver to Calgary, Calgary to Prince George. Prince George to Calgary, Calgary to Vancouver, Vancouver to PG. Daily service.
Anyone got a extra 100 million dollars lying around.
There is no jet service in and out of Prince George because there is not enough business to warrant this service.
The smaller planes save them money.
And there’ll be even less business if the Just Say No party is ever elected to government again.
It’s not that there’s enough service, they added departures to be more flexible. Also, their landing fee is significantly less compared to the 737 jets they had before
A plus is that the smaller planes allows for more frequent flights. A minus is that the space per seat is for commuter planes is not exactly an ergonomic marvel.
I am sure we have more people flying into and out of PG than we had in the 1970’s when we had jet service on a milk run route from Vancouver to Edmonton as well as Vancouver to Whitehorse without having to go Vancouver and then back up to our actual destination 500+km north of us.
So, the demand is there. The question is whether it is more economical to run two 737s or 4 or 5 Dash 8 400series. How would the seat prices differ comparing one to the other?
gopg2015, you state “The question is whether it is more economical to run two 737s or 4 or 5 Dash 8 400series.”
Do you not think that WestJet has already considered and answered that very question? After all, WestJet didn’t become a successful company by not considering such questions!
You got that right Hart Guy. They got rid of the jet service and implemented the Dash 8 service because it is cheaper, and because of passenger volumes. When it comes to operating an airline, WestJet has a pretty good idea how to do it.
They may have added an additional flight however in the big scheme of things that makes little difference.
People see the passenger numbers in Prince George as being 400,000 plus per year and they seem to think that makes this airport a really busy place. Busy in the eyes of people who live in the North but nothing compared to the rest of the world, especially Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Seattle, etc; etc;.
400,000 passenger is enplaned and deplaned. So in essence we have 200,000 flying in and out in a year. We have roughly 10 flights per day to Vancouver over an 18 hour period. So 200,000 outbound passengers divided by 365 days equal 547 passengers per day divided by 10 flights equals approx. 54.7 passengers per inbound and outbound flight.
So really we have about one fight lading and taking off every hour, with roughly 60 passengers per flight. Not really a very big operation.
Splitting hairs here but westjet flies the Q400 which can seat up to 88 passengers and crew Scare Canada flies both the dash8 and the Q400 out of PG there are on average 22 flights per day leaving and 24 flights landing from 5 scheduled air carriers.
While 400,000 passengers is a drop in the bucket for major airports PGs airport is able to handle up to 750,000 passengers when it was designed. When the latest airport facility was built PG had less than 310,000 passengers per year and the latest figures shown is that within 7 to 9 years there will be approximately 530,000 using the airport as the region continues to grow
Dearth. I was basically using Vancouver as that is where the bulk of the traffic goes to and comes from.
Long range forecast for passenger increases and population increases in this area doesn’t look very good.
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