Bellingham booming from Canadian border rush
Last month, the Vancouver-based Browns Restaurant Group expanded its U.S. operation when it opened a Scotty Browns franchise outlet just past the security gates at the Washington State airport. The opening, the second outlet for the company in the border city, comes after a March report by
the Canadian Airports Council that noted Vancouver International Airport was losing 950,000 passengers annually to Seattle and Bellingham airports.
The study determined Canadians accounted for 62% of passengers passing through Bellingham – a figure in line with the patronage at the Scotty Browns airport location, according to corporate spokesman Mark Majewski.
“I get (Vancouverites) texting me and emailing people all the time saying, ‘Oh, wow. You’re in Bellingham at the airport. That’s so cool.’”
The restaurant opening is just one part of the airport’s ongoing expansion.
Daniel Zenk, the facility’s aviation director, notes the airport has experienced 25-30% year-over-year growth in each of the last six years.
“Honestly, without … Canadians using the airport, Bellingham wouldn’t be as viable and wouldn’t be growing as fast as we are.”
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http://vancouver.24hrs.ca/News/local/2012/06/21/19906391.html
Bellingham airport undergoes huge expansion to accommodate Canadian flyers
BY ZOE MCKNIGHT, VANCOUVER SUN JUNE 28, 2012 9:10 PM
Bellingham International Airport will soon be three times the size it was three years ago, thanks to a boom in Canadian travellers.
A $17-million, 60,000-square-foot addition to the main terminal, ticketing and baggage claim area began in April, and a 20,000-square-foot renovation of the passenger gates was completed last year.
By the time the newest renovations are finished in 2013, the airport will have tripled in size.
In 2001, about 125,000 people flew out of Bellingham airport. This year, the airport could see as many as 625,000.
Aviation director Daniel Zenk estimated there’s been 25-per-cent growth per year for the last six years.
That rapid growth is thanks to travellers from the Lower Mainland who are willing to drive the 80 kilometres to save hundreds of dollars on plane tickets.
“There’s been this massive increase in traffic, and the vast majority of it has come from the Lower Mainland,” said Ken Oplinger, president of the Bellingham Chamber of Commerce. “When I meet with my colleagues up there and they talk about Abbotsford being the second airport for the Lower Mainland, I don’t even laugh. I just say they’re wrong, it’s Bellingham.”
“The expansion we’re going through is in very large part because there is so much Canadian traffic that has found this airport and the fact that it’s so much less expensive to fly out of here to destinations in the U.S.,” Oplinger said.
He added that passengers from the American northwest frequently use YVR, Canada’s second-largest airport serving 17 million passengers per year, for flights to Asia and Europe.
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http://www.vancouversun.com/travel/Belli...odate+Canadian+flyers/6858093/story.html
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From a woman trying to set off some sort of incendiary device on a flight from Urumqi to Shanghai to another memorable flight from Changsha to Beijing where we sat with doors open in 35c heat for 8 hours while the flight was delayed, then canceled, then uncanceled, then delayed again (resulting in a near riot by irate passengers) -- I could not make this stuff up. And then there is the regular mad rush and jostling to board the plane, etc etc. Air travel in China is much safer than it was a decade ago, but it is far from a pleasant experience.
YVR to DBX? Heresy!! Heresy !! Un-Canadian !!
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