Well I guess we will just have to wait a couple of weeks for the announcement, however for the life of me I cannot understand the concept of a distribution centre here. At this point it would require the Major Airlines to change their way of doing business, they already have Major Distribution Centres all over North America. Why they would want one located in the Central Interior is beyond me, however Im willing to listen and learn.

Read the link below to see what PG is going after.

Look at how busy Anchorage is. Essentially in the middle of nowhere yet, as it says: "It currently ranks as the 4th busiest cargo airport in the world (measured by landed weight), after Memphis, Hong Kong, and Tokyo-Narita." In fact, it PG is on the same route, as I understnd it, jut a bit shorter and much less traffic than Anchorage and probably cheaper land and possibly cheaper labour.

Memphis? .....

http://www.fedex.com/cgi-bin/content.cgi?template=sr_pr&content=about/pressreleases/lac/pr072903&cc=sr
Note the runway lengths; heavier planes, longer runways. Look at the Cargo airlines.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Stevens_Anchorage_International_Airport

http://www.allbusiness.com/periodicals/article/578535-1.html
Author Aaron Karp points out the curiosity that the Anchorage airport "stays atop the cargo rankings for western U.S. and Canadian airports even though it has almost no local air cargo market of its own."

Anchorage may be in the middle of nowhere but the Citys population increased from 75000 people in 1960 to 277000 in 2004. Major increase in population. Prince George during the same period increased its population from roughly 60,000 to 75000. In addition to all the Cargo flights in and out of Anchorage you also have domestic flights to and from the USA Major flights each day. Somewhere in the area of 40 or 50 flights including Cargo. We have one Intl flight per week to Mexico during the Winter Months, and 20 or so flights to and from Vancouver. Absolutely no comparison to Anchorage.

Its interesting to note that the Jet Fuel used at the Anchorage airport is brought in by Tanker Ships, which leads me to beleive that Jet Fuel is only manufactured in certain areas. I am going to find out if the local refinery makes Jet Fuel, but I doubt it.

Census Canada population for PG in 1961 was 13,877. There was no a single pulp mill here yet. College Heights, outside the PG City Limit, did not exist. The only additional population base was South Fort George which was also not included, but was a minor player with less than 1,000 probably.

Let's say the PG area which encompasses the City limit of today had a population of 15,000 in 1961. Then to reach 75,000 was a 5 fold increase.

With Anchorage having a population of 75,000 in 1961, it should have a population of 375,000 today, about 100,000 than it appears to have. And that assumes the city limit has not cahnged since 1961 to take in another rural population base which was already there.

PG had some tremendous boom years. From 1961 it grew from about 15,000 to 61,509 (taking in college heights which was created over those years) in 1976. That is a 4 fold increase in 15 years.

If that rate would come back for the next 15 years, the population in 2021 would be 300,000.

And some say we are booming now ... LOL

As far as Anchorage goes, it is still in the middle of nowhere with over 3,000 km to any population base of note. Even at 4 times the size of PG, it generates virtually zilch need for a portion of the passenger, yet alone the cargo traffic going through it. Whagtever is done in Anchorage, can mostly be done in PG as well.

However, Anchorage has lots of advantqages, including that it is a US city as well as it having facilties in place already and can show it knows how to accommodate such customers. But, it could be suffering from congestion and super hubs like that may no longer be the way to go.

Owl. The population of Prince George in 1961 was 13877 and in 1966 it was 24471 in 1971 it was 33101, however in 1976 it jumped to 59,929. This huge increase in population was a direct result of the Amalgamation which took in South Ft George, Hart Hiway, North Nechako, College Heights, Haldi Road, Western Acres, Blackburn, etc. The land mass of the City increased to 63 Thousand Acres (Roughly a 10 Mile Radius) The population increase per year 1961 to 1975 was approx 2000 people per year. From 1976 to 2006 the population went from 60,000 to 75000, or approx 500 people per year. This can hardly be considered as growth. More that 500 babies are born each year.

The only thing that Prince George and Anchorage have in common is the Mayors of both Citys went to the World Winter Cities Mayors Conference in China this year. No other Citys in North America were represented.

Anchorage has over half of the population of the State of Alaska (Pop. 600,000) and is a Major Seaport, International Airport, and a major distribution point for the rest of the State. Prince George has none of these.

Although there were no pulpmills in Prince George prior to the 1960's there were approx 500 sawmills in the forests within a 200 mile radius, and there were approx 18 Planner Mills along 1st Avenue and on CN trackage. The BC Rail Industrial park had not yet been built. Some of the Planer Mills were. Albert Stekle Lumber Co. Ralph Telford Lumber Co. Caine Lumber, Lambs Mills,Prince George Planer Mill, The Pas Lumber Co. Rustads,. Sawmills were located all along CN Tracks from Endako BC Through to Mcbride. Mills at Vanderhoof, Fort Fraser, Fraser Lake, Isle Pierre, Otway, Shelly, Giscome, Bend, Cresent Spur, Dewey, Upper Fraser, Penny,Cornel Mills, Longworth, Miworth, the list goes on. **My Point** The pulp mills killed off all the mills and this lumber is now being milled by approx 10 Planers in a 150 mile radius. The pulp mills did not create as many jobs as some people think, and if fact have reduced jobs by approx 1500 people in the last 10/15 years.

We will have to wait and see what kind of an announcement will be made in regards to the Airport expansion, however I think that Kamloops took the right tac, and zeroed in on the Tourism business. they are in a good location to do this. We do not have a tourism advantage, and I think the suggestion of an International Airport for Major Distribution Centres for Major Airlines is a bit of a reach. If you look at the 2004 Annual report for the Airport you will see that it is hardly breaking even. If it does borrow money for a Major expansion it would be in debt for the next 20 years. At best it will have to get the Money from the Government, however it is a somewhat nebulous venture