YVR continues to post some astounding numbers this year, with an average of 7.5% YoY growth for the first quarter of the year. If these rates continue it will skip 18 million entirely and end the year with 19+ million passengers.

http://www.yvr.ca/Libraries/Aviation...2014.sflb.ashx

Still a far cry from the mid 90s when it was adding a couple million passengers a year, but it is good to see some solid growth after the slow recovery.

It's unfortunate for those people, but they should have had insurance on their travel arrangements. Had someone insured themselves, they could have booked a hotel in Stephenville overnight and flown out the next morning on PAL and then been reimbursed for the extra expense. I've had the experience of being dumped at an airport nowhere near where I wanted to end up... now I always buy insurance. Definitely worth it to cover the risk.

The passengers that returned to Halifax did end up being offered vouchers for accomodations on their arrival and ended up getting on a flight to St. John's the next day.

As for the damper, I doubt it. We have no service here to the mainland right now and people are chomping at the bit to get on Porter's flights. We have free long term parking for people not from the immediate area. Somewhat related to the contracting out of ticket agents in St. John's: all of the airlines at our airport take advantage of contracted services instead of directly employing ticket agents. It's one of the things the airport initiated when it restructured about 10 years ago. I think 3 women handle all the passengers, calls, bookings, etc... for 3 airlines.

A nice overview of the new terminal and part of the new parallel runway at YYC:

http://i.imgur.com/9Gu4MaI.jpg

Not an expansion at all, but Aeroport de Montreal is launching a tender for demolition of the old terminal at Mirabel Airport which has been sitting unused for many years now, and costs too much in maintenance with no prospect of reuse or return in that same terminal

http://ici.radio-canada.ca/regions/M...aeroport.shtml

Here's a link to the CBC story on Gander's terminal, it includes a couple great views of the International Lounge which is the space that people are most concerned about. As Mr. O'Dea says in the news clip, some have described it as one of the best examples of a modernest space in Canada.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfou...inal-1.2624909

I think it would be great if the terminal could be incorporated into the aviation museum in Gander. Not sure how that would work but it seems like the most logical option.

Yeah, I hope they preserve it.

Almost all flights between North America and Europe stopped there to re-fuel and that meant Gander was all most international travelers ever saw of Canada. At first, when it was a little, backwoods airport - Canada started to get a bad reputation. So the federal government built a showpiece for the era - for its time, its probably the grandest in the country - everything in there, from the chairs to the floor tiles to the light fixtures - has a famous designer's name attached. Most of it would auction for a fortune today. It has to be saved.

Airlines should be contractually obligated to get passengers to the destination paid for and pay all expenses incurred if there are delays. Asking passengers to buy insurance is double dipping imo.

If you look at any airline ticket (which constitutes a contract) there is no guarantee of landing at any particular destination. If you buy a ticket from Ottawa to Fredericton but the weather is bad in Freddy, you can be dumped at Halifax or Saint John and you're on your own. This has actually gone before the courts and has stood up.

You have to be compensated for mechanical delays, scheduling issues, or anything within the airline's control, but weather constitutes an act of god for which they have no control over and they have no responsibility to customers for what they cannot control. Insurance comes from a 3rd party, not the airline usually, so there is no double dipping (I always go through a travel agent). It's the same as buying insurance on a vehicle or home, you do it to protect yourself against risk. For the sake of $60, buy the insurance. Same thing with your baggage. As per international convention, you are only entitled to $40 for any lost/damaged baggage. If you are checking any bag worth more than $40, insure it, which you can do at check-in most times. Otherwise, if your laptop is in a bag and gets dropped 2 storeys by handlers at Pearson, they can give you $40 and be done with it.

Incredible! I suppose it makes sense to demolish the terminal given that no one uses it, but it is amazing that it came to this... the one-time world's largest airport, Canada's airport of the future, where supersonic transports were going to come to call regularly, is now about to be no more.

The general rule is that you shouldn't buy insurance for anything that you could afford to cover out-of-pocket, because an insurance policy will statistically be negative in dollar value (assuming its profitable for the insurance company). That is, you buy public liability insurance for your car because one accident has the potential to bankrupt you. But if you have $1000 of luggage and $1000 in your chequing account, insurance is probably not very useful.

Um, actually BC has three cities on the list. Vancouver, vic and kelowna. Ontario and alberta both only have two.

Don't want to start another thread but does someone have the top ten busiest airports in Canada based on # of flights? There are a few airports which would make this new top ten.

This Statscan table might be close (data is for Jan 2014):

1. Toronto/Pearson
2. Vancouver/Intl
3. Calgary/Intl
4. Montreal/Trudeau
5. Edmonton/Intl
6. Calgary/Springbank
7. Ottawa/Macdonald-Cartier
8. Victoria/Intl
9. Winnipeg/James Armstrong Richardson
10. Abbotsford

Or from wiki for the 2012:

1. Toronto/Pearson
2. Vancouver
3. Calgary/Intl
4. Montreal/Trudeau
5. Ottawa
6. Montreal/Saint-Hubert
7. Boundary Bay
8. Edmonton
9. Toronto/Buttonville
10. Victoria
11. Québec City
12. Calgary/Springbank
13. Winnipeg/Intl
14. Toronto/City Cenre
15. Abbotsford
16. Thunder Bay
17. Waterloo
18. Winnipeg/St. Andrews
19. Saskatoon
20. Pitt Meadows

Ya I figured Boundary Bay in Vancouver would show up on the busiest by flights list. The planes are small so wouldn't show in the passenger top 10.

YYC passenger traffic increased by 7.8% over the first quarter of this year.

Over the first 3 months of last year, they recorded 3 334 437 passengers... this year, we've seen an increase of around 260 000, to 3 594 410 :) If this trend continues, we will jump to about 15.3 million (an increase of around 1 million) passengers this year, since Q3 and Q4 are always significantly busier than Q1.

Wtf is wrong with Winnipeg? The city is growing but the airport traffic isn't. I don't understand.

It's the same with Ottawa, the city is growing at a healthy clip, but air traffic is decreasing. I believe in Ottawa it is because of the feds cutting back jobs... could a major player in Winnipeg be cutting a lot of jobs, and therefor, a lot of corporate/government travel?

I don't think so. The economy and the job market are pretty healthy actually.

Winnipeg is notorious for travelers deciding to hop across the US border to catch cheaper flights out of North Dakota or Minnesota from places like Grand Forks. I don't know exactly how extensive the problem is from a purely quantative standpoint (the news may be exaggerating somewhat), but i'm sure it adds up to alot of lost revenue for airlines operating out of Winnipeg International.