all the BC, AB, Sask airports posting higher percent increase on average as compared to eastern half of the country..
Saskatoon could surpass Quebec's airport in 2014 :whistle:

Fort McMurray airport (YMM) opens June 9th. They have about 1mil passengers a year but are rising fast. This weekend there is an Airshow and gala featuring Randy Bachman.

The only issue that will dampen the opening is the food venders not being able to find enough staff. Famoso pizza has already said they may limit their operating hours.

Was by yesterday. Landscaping is being finished. The roads are being finalized. electronic billboards were operating even though the roads are closed to the public.

There are already additions being planned for the rental car area. and an article in the paper indicated they are looking at expansion again in about 5 years.

http://http://www.fortmcmurraytoday.com/2014/03/25/new-restaurants-stores-announced-for-fort-mcmurray-airport

http://www.officemb.ca/work/fort-mcmurray-airport/

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/repor...ticle18876643/

So they are opening a brand new airport basically, and already planning expansion within the decade? :P That is awesome! Go Alberta! :haha:


Awesome news about how fast Saskatoon is growing too!

They most definitely are NOT opening or building a new airport. What they have done is built a new terminal building at the existing airport.

I know that, hence the "basically". An entire new terminal, closing the old one. As if that was even the point of my comment. Relax. :P

Ohhh SSP, over-examining everything to the last. :rolleyes:

No the old terminal is staying put and being used for Sycrude Air and other Oil Sand Charters that are using older hangars now. There will be some minor changes but it is more or less staying the same.

The new Terminal is on the south side of the Airport property. about 1/2 way down the runway.

I heard Chris Hatfield will also be in Ft. Mac. this weekend for the festivities. :tup:

Yup and Desmond Tutu flew in yesterday. but not for the opening but to bitch about the oil sands.

Snowbirds were in YEG yesterday on their way up for the weekend.

Air Canada has just announced its seasonal direct flight between St. John's and London will now be year-round, 3x weekly.

It's good news - but it typically costs 2-3x what WestJet's direct flight to Dublin does, so it's not going to attract the casual flier. However, WestJet's service is still seasonal. They've already extended it once (from ending in August to ending in October) due to high demand. Hopefully this will convince WestJet to make its service permanent as well.

A little summary of Air Canada's offerings in St. John's:

I'm surprised by how expensive the Air Canada flight from St. John's to London is... it seems to routinely clock in at around $1200, which is clearly way more than the WestJet Dublin flight which you can easily find for under $500.

$1200 is beyond what I'd expect to pay for a 5-ish hour flight that isn't to some sort of remote northern outpost. I can only imagine that it must be heavy with business travellers... if so, I'm surprised that there is that much business traffic between Newfoundland and the UK. But good on St. John's for having not one, but two airlines with regularly scheduled flights to Europe!

Heathrow is an expensive airport to operate into. The cost of owning (or leasing) a prime landing and take-off slot is quite high. Most leisure airlines fly into Gatwick or Stranstead not Heathrow. I suspect there is probably a certain amount of connecting traffic from places like Ottawa, Montreal and Toronto on the flight.

I wonder what will happen to this flight as more and more of the A319 are transferred from the mainline airline to Rogue. Rogue has an aircraft configuration that is a more direct comparison to WestJet.

I've paid more than $1,200 just to fly to the Canadian mainland. Before WestJet, it was absolutely awful - and it still can be, unless you book WAY in advance or EXTREMELY last minute. My cousin and her husband, who are moving home permanently from Alberta this month, had to pay more than $1,100 each for their tickets - and those aren't even return, nor are they business class.

We're so far east that we're isolated, which doesn't actually justify the often extreme added cost of flying here (we're only a 1.5-hour flight from Halifax), but it does create the lack of competition (no nearby U.S. airports, for example) that allows the prices to be so high on average.

*****

Regarding business traffic, there's probably still quite a lot of less obvious interaction between Newfoundland and the U.K. We were part of the Kingdom from 1933-1949, and there's still a lot of love for traditional British products (or those associated with that era, such as Fussell's Cream).

But, really, I imagine it's just because Heathrow is a business connection to Europe. We do A LOT of business with certain countries there, such as Norway (Statoil), etc. I assume London isn't the final destination for most business travel from St. John's to Heathrow.

Sadly that price was more or less a promotion; I priced out round trip to Dublin and even that is still over $1000 now. I checked Air Canada's website this morning and I don't see any prices listed for YYT-Heathrow direct yet, but I imagine there won't be a price drop from what it costs now to route through Toronto/Montreal/or Halifax. It's super dumb, there's heavy business travel between St. John's and London, the flight really isn't that long at all, there's no need for it to cost so bloody much.

^ I got that fare from messing around a few seconds with Google flights... it appears to be available on at least some days.

I did find a week in early September where you can get round trip for about 650 if you only plan on being gone for about 2-3 days from say Monday to Wednesday.

The International terminal

http://www.cfms-alberta.com/wp-conte...oads/IFP-1.jpg
http://www.cfms-alberta.com/wp-conte...oads/IFP-3.jpg
http://www.cfms-alberta.com/portfoli...ional-airport/
http://skiesmag.com/images/news/arti...4838672504.png
http://skiesmag.com/news/article/Can...aytoopeninJune


Canada's longest runway to open in June
Calgary Airport expansion also includes new $1.4 billion terminal

Full story: http://skiesmag.com/news/article/Can...aytoopeninJune

Wow, it actually does beat Goose Bay and Stephenville in length. :) Ours are fewer than 12,000 feet long.

Just checked the prices for YYT-Heathrow direct round trip. For the week in November I have quoted the total cost is $2091. Presumably these numbers fluctuate between days and probably bottoms out at a little over $1000. But it looks like it's the same cost as the flights as connecting through other cities, so there's that at least.

This is why I was hoping today's announcement would be for direct service to a city I could afford to visit (like maybe Boston).

It's Air Canada...

You'll definitely be able to get to Dublin cheaper with WestJet, and then it's only pocket change to fly just about anywhere in Europe.

i wonder why they don't have more direct flights to alberta, all the newfies i work with it seems to take them days to go they bounce around canada for about 2 days to get home