You don't see people fly down for WEM, most flights I have been on, (day trips every 2 weeks but getting to be weekly) have people flying through to some other destination.

But the numbers that fly to and from the McMurray region from YEG are quite high. Not just from terminal 1 but from the other FOBs as well. I flew into Shells airodrom at Albian Sands this week from T3. There were 3-737s 2 dashes and a CRJ on the ground when we landed, all out of YEG. There will be a bump from CCA closing but the big movers had moved to YEG last year. the smaller operators like Airco moved this past summer.

I know I've been told time and time again that it is not very feasible due to Canad having a small population distributed in large geographical area but damn I wish we had low cost carriers like EasyJet and RyanAir in Europe... Would make for a lot more Canadian and US travellers! More tourism, more "cultured" people who have traveled around and seen stuff and different cities and realities... It's just so damn expensive to fly.
Ottawa to Winnipeg, MB: Approx. $800
Ottawa to Vancouver, Bc: Approx. $600
Ottawa to Calgary, AB: Around $600-700
Ottawa to Quebec City, QC: Around $500
Ottawa to St. John's, NL: $500.
Therefore no one travels in Canada because of costs unless business is paying or unless necessary.

From Ottawa I can go to Europe for $800 or Florida for $300, or California for $450...
I loved Europe because I could buy a ticket from Milan to Paris for a weekend for $30 roundtrip, or go to Greece for a walk for $50. Most expensive ticket I paid was $90 roundtrip to go to Morocco from Italy! .. Imagine having something like this (even if double the price)... Could fly to NYC for a weekend. A week off? Fly to Alberta or BC to visit the westcoast... Special event in Montreal or Quebec? Fly there! But no...

**RANT OVER**

It's been a while since I lived up there, but back then (2003-2005) most flights went to Edmonton. If you were flying to Calgary you would usually go through Edmonton first.

As far as shopping and WEM goes.... most people in Fort Mac would go to Edmonton to shop, but never by flying.....always driving. The people who flew were pretty much all business folks. Some like myself flew to Edmonton or Calgary because that's where home was, or there business was based in those cities. Most of the business crowd flew to those cities to connect to flights to other cities.

Did Billy Bishop really flat line after recording huge growth for many years in a row? I suspect they didn't have data so just wrote in 2012's number.

Billy Bishop had no data for 2008 and the 2013 data looks fishy. If one looks at 2009 - 2012, Billy Bishop recorded growth of 1,530,000 passengers. That alone would be good enough for 3rd spot. I suspect if 2008 data were available and 2013 were accurate, it saw more growth in absolute terms than any airport except Pearson.

If the runway extension is allowed and no caps on traffic imposed, I could see this airport becoming the 5th busiest in Canada within 10 years.

Pedestrian tunnel should have a positive impact as well.

Would be cool to see the interior stylings of each airport, here's YHZ (#7):

http://www.airport-technology.com/up...-stanfield.jpg
Source

http://www.airport-technology.com/pr.../7-halifax.jpg
Source

http://hiaa.ca/wp-content/uploads/20...afe1-small.jpg
Source

Canadian airports look like clones of each other. Besides a few local touches, they all look eerily similar.

Some Interior Shots of Pearson

http://www.topboxdesign.com/wp-conte...n-800x1035.jpg

http://www.topboxdesign.com/wp-conte...n-800x1035.jpg

http://www.topboxdesign.com/wp-conte...of-800x631.jpg

More Shots Here TopBoxDesign: Toronto

All airports look like clones... I mean they all have large parking garages, security check zones with x-ray machines, and from there you go to gates outside of which they have all these jets around.... weird. ;)

NO! That's our spot!

I'll bet you are right about WEM...

I found this: Passenger numbers have grown from four million in 2000, to seven million in 2013, to an expected 10 million in 2020. Not included are the 500,000 passengers per year using YEG’s private terminals to fly to the oilsands.

http://www.edmontonsun.com/2014/02/2...ontons-success

Quebec City had 1 475 717 passengers in 2013, a growth of 9.9% from 2012.

http://tourismexpress.com/nouvelles/...-des-passagers

It's pretty cool that only our fourth largest province has two airports on the list! There are two provinces total with two each, and one with three! Can you guess which one? :P :)

the one with 3 is Ontario. Toronto itself has 2 airports on the list (pearson and island) while Ottawa will obviously have one it's the national capital

Quebec City's airport's growth over the last 5 years (2008-2013) : 380 604 passengers, which would place it in 5th place. Even more impressive is the 2007-2013 growth: 526 192 more passengers.


2013 1 403 466
2012 1 342 840
2011 1 313 432
2010 1 190 088
2009 1 035 026
2008 1 022 862
2007 877 274

http://www.aeroportdequebec.com/corp.../statistiques/

What's leading the growth?

the very good economy maybe, 4-5% unemployment rate

and the modernisation of the airport. $225M in 2011-2012.

Well for a long time, Quebec city was considered a side trip for people going to Montreal whereas now, Quebec is becomming a destination in and of itself. That's why airline companies have manifested an interest in the airport in recent years, especially since 2008 for the 400th anniversary of the city, which served as a catalyst for the airport's growth. Prior to that, even residents of the city used to go to Montreal to fly internationally because there were not enough airline companies operating from Quebec City, which also had an impact on ticket prices. This situation is changing since the number of destinations offered directly from Quebec has increased dramatically in the last few years. However, if the international traffic is going extremely well, the domestic traffic still has a long way to go. People in western Canada do not pass through Quebec city's airport that much. Let's hope that the new flights offered by Westjet and Porters will change that!!!

The airport's growth will likely continue in the next few years. Construction of the new multi level parking is now over and construction of the new International terminal, which will double the size of the airport, will begin this summer.

You win! :fireworks: