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P.G. Airport Reports Solid Fiscal Year

By Submitted Article

Thursday, June 19, 2008 02:40 PM

Prince George, B.C. – The Prince George Airport Authority remains optimistic there  will be a positive decision by the Agricultural Land Commission on the request to remove land from the Agricultural Land reserve for the development of a logistics park “I expect the decision is imminent” says Airport Authority Chair Jim Blake.
 
Blake also expects there to be a special designation for the Prince George Airport.
"I expect that within a few days the Prince George Airport will be designated a trans-shipment airport. That means we can have two planes coming from different places, land, trade cargo and continue on to other destinations.”
 
2007 has been a good fiscal year for the Prince George Airport with a record number of passengers (407,300) coming through the airport’s doors, the extension of the runway underway, the soon to be installed LED lighting on the new runway which will make the Prince George Airport the only airport in North America to have LED lighting on the runway (which reduce the Airport’s energy costs by about $80 thousand dollars a year), and  the installation of two instrument landing systems.
 
The books show that while there was a small operating deficit, the overall financial picture has the Prince George Airport finishing off the year with a $1.7 million dollar profit, up from the $1.3 million recorded in 2006.
 
There are two things which will have an impact on the Airport in the year ahead,   although Blake is optimistic the recently announced cuts to Air Canada won’t have any further impact. “We lost the flight to Calgary, but our other flights are operating at 85-90% capacity and West Jet has indicated it plans to grow.”
 

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Posted on Thursday, June 19, 2008 02:40 PM in News by Submitted Article

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Comments

Comment Posted by: He speaks on June 19 2008 3:10 PM
Way to go Stieg and the gang. Keep us on the cutting edge.
Comment Posted by: lunarbase on June 19 2008 3:34 PM
Please cut the AIF from $15 down to a more reasonable $2 or at least make improvements for passengers.

A corner store of some sort, some way of getting food around the later flights, covered parking instead of the ice disaster every winter out there, actual security guards staffed to adequate levels to deal with issues.
Comment Posted by: pgdealer on June 19 2008 4:11 PM
wait wait. where is OWL negativity? you're letting us down buddy.

Union must be getting robbed somehow
Comment Posted by: pgdealer on June 19 2008 4:28 PM
no doubt he was just making fun about moving the airport to china. Too bad china wouldnt just take him!!!

Comment Posted by: Palopu on June 19 2008 4:45 PM
How much is a small operating deficit.

With the Airport Improvement Fee at $15.00 and roughly 207000 outbound passengers, this would gross you roughly $3.5 Million dollars. Not hard to make money by taxing flying customers. Bump the AIF to $20.00 and you would make more money.
Comment Posted by: Palopu on June 19 2008 7:24 PM
Turns out the small operating deficit is around $180,000.00

Add on the $11 Million owed to the Northern Trust Initiative and the $5 Million owed to the CIBC, and the fact that they will have to start paying lease payments to the Federal Government in 2011 and the picture is no quite so rosy.
Comment Posted by: lunarbase on June 19 2008 7:49 PM
The AIF can't be used for operating expenses. Only new additions or repairs to the airport.

Comment Posted by: diplomat on June 19 2008 9:28 PM
Great positive news! Keep it coming!

Comment Posted by: tinyapplecork on June 19 2008 10:05 PM
Sounds like a nice positive BUT rising costs of fuel, lack of economic development in the region...is it really rosy? It appears to add to our transportation of goods network but how does this mesh with our carbon neutral blah blah, road maintenance, higher cost of living, etc...

Fewer trucks then? Ah well, I've digressed from topic.

We seem to have some competent people at the airport, so I will go with that for now and congratulate them!

(But I am still growling about the ALR issue...my grr will leave when I see actual sustainable development happen if they get approval. I still think the majority of the logistics park is pie in the sky...hope they prove me wrong)

:)
Comment Posted by: owl on June 20 2008 12:00 AM
Transshipment Airport ..... set up primarily to give smaller airports a leg up when competing in the air cargo world.

Another requirement for success about to be completed. Without that, the number of opportunities to make the airport a success would have been minimal.

http://www.apta.ca/webcura/files/703.pdf