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Originally Posted by big T
Does either airport have US preclearance?
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No. The sum total of US service to Saskatchewan right now is Northwest's twice daily flights to Minneapolis to each of YQR and YXE.
Of course there's also seasonal sunspot charters that use Canadian customs facilities, but it'll be a while before the traffic is high enough to justify US preclearance. Shoot, Halifax only just got preclearance in 2006, and they're at around 3.5 million passengers per year.
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Originally Posted by migs
Its not because Saskatoon 'won' anything, its because the feds wouldn't supply customs workers for the flight times that were given to Regina.
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Perhaps. On the flip side, the question also becomes one of working with scare resources - what could the airline and airport do to adjust the schedule to operate within the window that the Customs inspectors are available? This isn't always an option, of course, but it is tough to believe that something couldn't be figured out that would roughly correspond to the times that another international flight arrives so inspectors would be there. If something couldn't be worked out, it could also indicate that WestJet was trying to operate a flight on a completely lousy schedule (ie- 4am arrivals or something silly like that - I've been there, done that, won't repeat it).
FWIW, I think it's a bit silly to say either YQR or YXE will become the main international gateway for Sask. Realistically people from Regina won't travel up the road to fly from YXE, so I fully expect YQR to get its own improved air service. The traffic levels from both airports are almost a dead heat.