Runway Plans Moving Forward

Saturday, January 13, 2007 04:00 AM

Prince George Airport Manager Stieg Hoeg, Airport Authority Chairman Jim Blake, Federal Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn, and Prince George-Peace River M.P. Jay Hill are all smiles following the announcement the Federal Government will put $11 million dollars into the Airport’s runway expansion plan.

They have two thirds of the funds needed, and will forge ahead with their plans to have the runway expansion ready soon. Airport Authrity Board Chair Jim Blake says it has been just 4 months since they put the pitch before the Federal Government. "Four months is a pretty quick turn around as far as the Federal Government is concerned, in fact its fantastic."

There is still a wait for the Province to come up with the balance "We’re working closely with the Provincial Government " says Blake " You’ve heard the Premier say a number of times now his support for the local airport, I’m quite confident once we get some of the details worked out things will come around fairly quickly."

The final design of the runway is underway now and there are hopes the actual construction will start this spring "We will do the first phase this year to 10 thousand feet and complete phase two to 11,400 the following summer."

Now the shift will be to make sure the word is out about the opportunities at the Prince George Airport. "We are trying to ramp up our marketing initiatives, continue to let the industry know a new alternative is coming out there the funding is almost in place. It’s hard for them to commit till we have solid plans for a runway extension." says Airport General Manager Stieg Hoeg. "We’ll start making the pitch all over, wherever the industry is, we’ll be there."

Hoeg says a 10 thousand foot runway will get most aircarft in and out at 60 - 70% load factor. "We have talked to all the large carriers, all the integrated carriers such as Fed Ex, DHL, we talked to a lot of the charter carriers, we’ve talked to some of the combi-carriers such as northwest, (carries passengers and cargo) and all of them have expressed support for this project" says Hoeg. He says the carriers are viewing the P.G. Airport on a variety of levels "Whether it’s as an alternative, an emergency alternative, or as a distinct base of operations,there is real support, so we see a real need for this, a real compliment to Anchorage."

In this case, Stieg Hoeg says they have spent a lot of time to make sure the timing is right.

"One of the reasons we staged to 10 ( thousand feet) was to coordinate with the Prince Rupert Port opening. If all things go well, and we certainly have done the planning to make it happen, we will see pavement open to accomodate 747s when Rupert’s container port is open."

That port is set to open October 1st of 2007.

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Posted on Saturday, January 13, 2007 04:00 AM in News by 250 News

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Comments

Posted by: giterdun on January 13 2007 8:30 AM

WHERE'S THE "DICK" ???

Posted by: thereasonableman on January 13 2007 9:16 AM

In order to raise the other two thrids of the money needed, the new runway will feature 1/4 mile drag racing on Friday nights. If you get airborne, you win.

Posted by: thereasonableman on January 13 2007 9:19 AM

In all honesty, I think it's a good move for Prince, and a necessary move for the economy to develop. Vancouver is maxxed out and this is a good opportunity for us to scoop up some of the overload, same as the P. Rupert container terminal. This town really needs to move fast to diversify, we have been way too reliant on a now-failing forestry industry.

Posted by: owl on January 13 2007 9:19 AM

Good going STIEG Hoeg!!!

:-)

Posted by: Palopu on January 13 2007 9:20 AM

One has to wonder how fast the money would have come from the Feds if an election was not just around the corner. Campbell has over two years before the next election so he can take his time.

One of the reasons they staged to 10 thousand feet was to coordinate with the Prince Rupert port opening. They will be able to accomodate 747's when the Rupert port opens. I am still at a loss to see any connection between the two however I suppose when the Rupert Port opens on October 1st this year all will become clear.

Posted by: thereasonableman on January 13 2007 9:44 AM

With a container reload facility in town, containers may have their cargo unloaded, split up, and some of it air-freighted is my best guess.

Posted by: owl on January 13 2007 12:42 PM

As far as I know, containers for ocean going vessels and containers for airplanes are quite different so that the latter better accommodate the fuselage shape without wasting space.

I am with Palopu on this one, scratching my head on the connection. I woule think if I wanted to ship something from Shanghai to Chicago, and it is small enough to fit on a plane, I would decide how quickly it needs to get there. The most expensive and risky part of an operation is probably the handling of the cargo from one mode to another. People time + greater damage possibility + greater misdirecting possibility.

So, if I were interested in getting it there, but time did not matter, then I would send it by container. Otherwise directly by plane. I am still trying to locate an example of an intermodal hub going from a long distance non-air shipping container to a long distance air shipping container. Maybe someone on here knows.

These must be very secret marketing calls to not clarify to that segment of the population of PG which might be interested in such matters. Then again, that may only be 3 or 4 people. :-)

Posted by: Palopu on January 13 2007 12:45 PM

Air-freight is time sensitive and very expensive.

It is highly unlikely that you would load a product in a container in South East Asia send it by ship to Prince Rupert, then rail it from Prince Rupert to Prince George, then take in to a warehouse unload the container, load the product into an Air Cargo Plane and fly it to another destination.

Nor would you do the reverse, ie: load a container in the US Midwest, rail it to Prince George unload it in a warehouse, load it on a plane and fly it to South East Asia.

If is time sensitive you would fly it all the way.

I am aware of Airline Distribution Centres, and Container Distribution Centres, however I have never heard of a Container, Airline Distribution Centre. To me they are two entirely different things.

Posted by: Chadermando on January 13 2007 3:04 PM

The only possible connection I can make is in value added manufacturing. Where large components come in by rail, small components by air and assembled in PG for distribution in North America and/or over seas. We would then be in a prime position to do that, but I have yet to hear any announcements of that sort.

Time Will Tell

Posted by: Gofaster on January 13 2007 4:38 PM

Loaded question there Giterdun...

I think this airport buzz has about as much merit as the inland container fiasco...
It will be wonderful if it all comes to fruition, but I don't think I am going to be holding my breath....

I can hope I suppose....

Posted by: thereasonableman on January 13 2007 5:02 PM

Hey, I did say it was a guess ?? I don't know any better than you do, what the connection may be.

However, one thing I can predict is an increase in distribution hubs here in PG. Containers will be loaded in Asia, shipped to Rupert, trucked or railed to PG, unloaded, cargo split up and redistributed by whatever transportation means the pope deems necessary on that particular day, but mainly by truck like everything else on the planet. That means we need enough handling facilities (warehousing and distribution) to move the necessary amount of container traffic. Some cans will go directly by rail or truck to another destination such as Edmonton or Yahk International Cargo Handling Facility Worldwide Ltd.

One thing the airport will increase is the number of Pineview residents complaining about noise levels.

Posted by: Palopu on January 13 2007 8:18 PM

All the products from China and South East Asia that presently come into this area go to Vancouver in Containers and are then distributed from there. In all likely hood that will continue into the future because it would probably still be cheaper than Railing it or trucking it from Prince Rupert to Prince George and then distributing it. In addition it has been stated over and over again, that the containers loaded in Prince Rupert will be headed to the US Midwest and Toronto and Montreal. These are the big population areas. This has been the plan from the get-go, however who knows.

Even if it did come from Prince Rupert rather than Vancouver it wouldnt make that much of an impact because their are not very many people in North West BC. If you take all the people from 100 Mile House to Ft St John and to Prince Rupert and Kitimat you would come up with a total of 346,798 (2006 BC Stats figures) people. The population of Greater Vancouver is 2,180,737, once you throw in Vancouver Island and the rest of the Province you have 4 Million people to service. To me this means that they will continue to ship Containers to Vancouver and distribute throughout BC from there. Is not likely that the same stores would have distribution centres for the Province 500 Miles apart.

I am not aware of any Warehouses being built in this area, nor am I aware of any Warehouses already built who have been approached to handle any inbound container unloading or distribution.

The fact that the first ship is supposed to arrive and unload in Prince Rupert in October of this year indicates to me that there is no plan on stopping any containers here, or someone would have to have facilities ready in the next 9 Months.

There will be increased jobs for the Railway, Trainmen, Engineers, etc; some rail car repair people, etc;, I suspect somewhere in the area of 50 Jobs, most of these would be replacement jobs that were lost when they discontinued the coal trains from Tumbler Ridge to Prince Rupert, so I wouldnt expect a big net gain.

Posted by: Chester on January 13 2007 9:49 PM

Now if we can just keep our railways operating, things may work out just fine for our overall economy.

One of the biggest factors in our BC economy has been the lack of a stable labour force. I was hoping those days were behind us. Chester

Posted by: REALIST on January 13 2007 11:47 PM

But that's just it Chester, they no longer are our railways and thus, we will not receive a single dime of the increased profits C.N. will now make. Thanks Gordo. Perhaps he can convince Alcan to buy ICBC and then we could lose those profits too and satisfy the requirement of giving Alcan our money so they can recoup what they lost on power sales while building a smelter that employs no people. Wouldn't that make them all happy?

Posted by: thereasonableman on January 14 2007 9:49 AM

I still think we will see an increase in distribution here. It is not a matter of your personal preference, it is a matter of moving the container traffic. You will see a trucking boom, as rail doesn't have the capacity to handle it all. Companies like Bandstra, Byers, Williams, etc. already handle third party warehousing and distribution for major chains and I think we will see their role increased and possibly see expansion in some regard whether it's new players or growing of the present ones. While we do not have a large population here, we do have the connecting routes, the labour force, and the land to provide services. We do not need to be buying all the products to handle them. From another article, big chains are already rethinking their distribution chains and that makes perfect business sense.

"He says retailers like Walmart, Best Buy and Canadian Tire are already looking at how Prince Rupert can fit into their shipping plans."

The big gains for employment will be the port in Prince Rupert, and the trucking industry on both ends. I don't expect it will affect the railway much at all. It only takes a couple guys to move 100 cars.

A point to the whole deal is that Vancouver can't handle all the capacity, not even with Sea-Tac taking overflow. A shipper will have to pick and choose what is going to Vancouver based on real need. Shipments that do not absolutely need to go to Vanny will go to Rupert, (ie. eastern shipments routed through Edmonton and possibly a new north/south highway to Illinois that I have heard rumors about).

Finally, Palopu what makes you think you would be aware of discussions taking place for redistribution ?
Do they need to notify you first before they are allowed to speak to each other ?

Come-on .....let's not speak politicianese.
The phrase you were looking for is "I don't know", and that puts you in the chair right beside the rest of us.

Posted by: Palopu on January 14 2007 4:08 PM

If you read all the information available on the Port of Prince Rupert you would see that the intention from the very start was to ship these inbound containers to the American Midwest and Toronto and Montreal. You might have some set off for Edmonton, Calgary, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, etc; as these areas have a larger population base and plenty of huge warehouses for distribution, however very few if any will be dropped off in Prince George.

The nearest Best Buy Stores in BC are in the lower mainland. None anywhere else in the Province. A very limited number of Canadian Tire Stores, and Wal Marts outside the lower Mainland.

These containers are going to go to the huge population areas in the US Midwest.

Insofar as warehouses being built in this area. All you have to do is drive around the City and you will see that there is nothing being built, that could conceivably be a huge distribution warehouse. We know that the first containers are to start shipping October 1st. so that means if anyone plans on unloading and distributing containers in this area they better get started on a building, as they have only 8 months to get ready. You can drive anywhere in this City in less that 15 minutes so it is not hard to keep on top of what is happening.

Having had some experience in Physical Distribution, and Logistics, I can tell you that it is highly unlikely that there will be any major distribution of Container products in the Prince George area. This whole concept is an excercise in **economys of scale* and in order for it to work successfully the Containers have to go to high density populated areas and then be redistributed from there.

The first phase of the Prince Rupert Container Port is to handle 500,000 TEU'S. (20 ft equivilent units) or 250,000 40ft Containers, per year. This means that at a minimum you will have 3 trains per day going through Prince George with approx 260 40ft Containers on each train, or 780 40ft containers. This volume would be the equivilent of giving every man, women, and child in North Central BC one 40ft Container of merchandise per year.

780 Containers per day would **roughly** be 24ft wide 25ft high and 1 mile long, arriving in Prince George each day. So you can see that obviously these containers must go somewhere else.

90% of all products consumed in the Northern Interior are distributed from warehouses in Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, or points East. The reason it is done this way is because it is the most cost efficient. Thats why all the distribution warhouses that used to be here years ago are gone.

Posted by: diplomat on January 15 2007 6:36 PM

News announcement today by Liberal MLA Rustad: No funding assistance for the runway extension is coming from the province.

Who is the Rhino party candidate in the next election?