Actually, better yet, Regina had the only paved runways between Montreal and Vancouver. ;)

:previous: Not sure about that.

According to a plaque marking the first municipal airport in Hamilton, it had paved runways in 1929 (the first in eastern Canada, so it says).

This airport was in the city's east end, between Parkdale Ave. and the Red Hill Valley south of Barton Street. It later had night lighting, and was used by the air force for training (the 19th Bomber Squadron began there) and also hosted an airmail service. When a newer airport was built at Mount Hope for wartime training (where the current one is still located) the east end airport dwindled, and the land became residential in the 1950s.

http://www.museevirtuel-virtualmuseu...CZ000104b8.jpg
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http://www.museevirtuel-virtualmuseu...CZ000104b9.jpg
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http://media.zuza.com/9/c/9c02cb88-5...c9_Content.jpg
Source: http://www.thespec.com/news-story/22...-end-air-show/

That plaque also notes another commercial airfield that had opened in 1927 (sounds like it wasn't far north of the 1929 airport) and "Canada's first aviation meet" in 1911 at a field on the bayfront that apparently "featured the first intercity (Hamilton - Toronto) aircraft race ever contested in North America."

More history here


The website that has the old photos has another of a plane that mistakenly landed at the old airfield site in 1970 behind a school.
http://www.museevirtuel-virtualmuseu...CZ000104bb.jpg
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YUL's passenger traffic rose to 7,157,409 in the 2nd quarter (January to June) a 3.0% increase from last year.

Saw this in the skyline thread... anyone have any idea what that UN plane is doing at the Toronto island airport?

^ They service Dash 8s and Dash 7s there iirc, so it may have been under recent contract.

Not exactly worthy of a parade but YVR was just awarded "most efficient airport in Canada". Not sure how they measure that stat.
Im more impressed with "best airport in North America" which Vancouver's airport has won 5 years in a row. IT is also rated "top 10 airport in the world" during the same 5 years.

Nice! I don't believe I've been in it yet. We did travel across Canada by train one summer and flew back, but I really don't recall it being from Vancouver.

But I know what your airport looks like haha. Nice building. And growing?

Yeah, basically being doubled right now, I believe. Same design will carry through.

I would dispute the efficiency award based on the last two flights I took into YVR. Both were held up waiting for gates at YVR and tonight it was a 15 minute wait while ground crews could be summoned. The last time we had to wait at the gate for a good 20+ minutes but they couldn't get the jetway to work so after they finished unloading the plane they tugged us over to another gate. Two anecdotes don't make a pattern, but it's been annoying.

If I've been to the airport twice (for 2 trips), do I count as 1 or 2 passengers?

Nice! The best part is how easy it is to get there by SkyTrain.

AFAIK each arrival or departure counts as one PAX, therefor if you have made two recent trips (arrival and departure each time) then you are actually four passengers. :)

This incidentally is why hub airports have such inflated PAX counts, because the connecting passengers contribute inordinately to passenger numbers, even though they never visit the connecting city and perhaps are only using the airport facilities for an hour or two while they are waiting for their connecting flight.

It would be interesting if connecting passenger data could be teased from the overall PAX numbers. This might really "deflate" the importance of some airports…...

There is origin & destination data which theoretically provides a picture of where people are going from various airports. I suspect that hub airports still experience some inflations in numbers but it should be significantly less than if you look at just raw passenger numbers.

Statistics Canada gets its O&D numbers from the airlines who report the origin and final destination of their passengers. Therefore, if I book a flight from Waterloo to Vancouver via Calgary, I count as an O&D passenger between Waterloo and Vancouver and Calgary isn't considered at all.

Transport Canada releases O&D demand from each major airport's catchment area for travel to the United States, so you can tease out which airports are contributors, and which are benefactors of hubbing.

I've had my fair share of bad experiences at YVR too, but I find on the whole that it is the most reliable airport I've ever been to in NA, by a large margin too. YYZ's physical appearance is nice but takes hours for baggage to arrive, security almost always understaffed and flights are routinely late to leave.

Quebec City Jean-Lesage Airport expansion project


• Video Link

Finally some renderings of the new international terminal! Another major project going up next year in Quebec City. This terminal will be welcomed since passenger traffic at the airport keeps increasing rapidly. It grew by 8% in july.

8 % Only in july ?

Airports usually quote LTM growth or growth vs the previous years month due to the seasonal variation of air travel.

Growing at a flat 8% a month would equate to a 96% annual growth rate.