Sickness prompts plane lock-in at YVR
Health authorities say they had to err on the side of caution after 145 Air Canada passengers, some suffering from an unknown sickness, were trapped in their plane for two hours.
Around 10:45 p.m. Monday night, Air Canada Flight 129 - from Montreal to Vancouver - landed at Vancouver International Airport with reports that 25 passengers had become nauseous and sick.
Emergency crews surrounded the plane but stayed on stand-by as the feeral Public Health Agency and Vancouver Coastal Health decided what to do about the passengers and whether they needed to be quarantined.
"It took a couple hours to work through the process [Monday] night. It didn't go as smoothly as it should," said Vancouver Coastal Health vice-president of communications Clay Adams. "But nobody appeared to have any serious symptoms and no one was taken to hospital."
Adams said authorities were taking a cautious approach to avoid a SARS-like outbreak.
"Everyone wanted to help," he said.
However, poor communication seemed to be the main reason why it took so long to treat the ill passengers.
A public health agency quarantine officer was called to the scene only for the agency pass off responsibility to Vancouver Coastal Health since the flight was domestic.
Meanwhile, paramedics weren't allowed to attend to the passengers until the health authority decided what to do.
Only Richmond firefighters, who were the first on the scene, managed to check on the passengers early on in the ordeal.
VCH eventually gave the OK for passengers get off the plane two hours after it landed.
http://vancouver.24hrs.ca/News/2008/11/19/7457096-sun.html
Prev
There are a lot of airlines that don't fly to Vancouver in winter, mainly because the market simply isn't big enough (compare this to Seattle, which is overtaking us in this domain). In summer, Air Transat and others fly to Paris, Munich, Dusseldorf, and are about to start flights to Madrid and elsewhere.
There is talk of Emirates coming to Vancouver. Ha! That won't be until after 2025, and there is a willingness on the part of the governement to let the city - along with its airport grow.
Until then, remember what Vancouver REALLY is: the capital of the banana republic of British Columbia. Sorry, but those are realities. 
OK, I'll try and clarify it for you
All I really meant was that, first and foremost, Vancouver is not a big enough city to warrant or support YEAR-ROUND service to many European cities. (Right now, all we have is London, Amsterdam, and Frankfurt)
Secondly, the Canadian government caters to its large voting base in Eastern Canada by making as many people transfer through Toronto (YYZ) or Montreal (YUL) as possible, giving those airports more profile and more importance.
Thirdly, Vancouver, despite its ties to Asia, is nevertheless a REGIONAL city with international pretensions, and it will not be before it gets bigger (upwards of 3 million) that you will start to see a wider variety of airlines, and more worldwide, and particularly European, destinations on a YEAR-ROUND basis. 
The YVR Airport Terminal is great, we all agree, but the destinations are limited. The number of different airlines flying to it is limited. And it will be this way for another 20 years at least.
Poor people.
I think you've got it
Due to its relative isolation, Vancouver has developed a rather insular mentality. Paradoxically, it is a city with one of the highest foreign-born populations in North America. Nonetheless, it does not have a real, dynamic economy, the way Seattle does (viz: Boeing, Microsoft, Starbucks, and more), but has made its reputation more recently in the film and TV industries, as well as being a major seaport, which it undeniably is. However,
Linear Mode
