Winnipeg | James Armstrong Richardson International Airport

[esquire]

^ Why not a 757 slightly less often? It's all leisure travel so it's not like it has to be daily... I'd imagine that Winnipeggers would be fine with 3x weekly nonstop Hawaii service on a 757 vs. 5x weekly with a fuel stop on a 737.

[jmt18325]

Originally Posted by esquire

^ Why not a 757 slightly less often? It's all leisure travel so it's not like it has to be daily... I'd imagine that Winnipeggers would be fine with 3x weekly nonstop Hawaii service on a 757 vs. 5x weekly with a fuel stop on a 737.

What would be the difference, really? I've been on both, and other than a bit less shoulder room, it's not that much different...plus, the 737 is still in production. The 757, not so much.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by jmt18325

What would be the difference, really? I've been on both, and other than a bit less shoulder room, it's not that much different...plus, the 737 is still in production. The 757, not so much.

No real difference from a comfort standpoint, just that it would eliminate the need for refueling stops. Perhaps a 767 might actually be needed for that kind of range? Either way the point stands.

[CoryB]

My impression was that as WS received additional 767 planes they would expand their Hawaii direct flights in winter to other markets. Considering they were slower to arrive and missed some of the winter season this year that could delay the change for 2016/2017. That said, I am pretty sure those same 767 planes are the ones picking up all those London summer flights. We could end up with a rotating service -- London in the sunny months and Hawaii in the colder ones. The Hawaii flights though are going to be heavily marketed on selling vacation packages and not just a seat on a plane.

[Jammon]

Originally Posted by CoryB

My impression was that as WS received additional 767 planes they would expand their Hawaii direct flights in winter to other markets. Considering they were slower to arrive and missed some of the winter season this year that could delay the change for 2016/2017. That said, I am pretty sure those same 767 planes are the ones picking up all those London summer flights. We could end up with a rotating service -- London in the sunny months and Hawaii in the colder ones. The Hawaii flights though are going to be heavily marketed on selling vacation packages and not just a seat on a plane.

I am all for it- but only with a 767. I have done that flight 2x from Minneapolis to Honolulu and it's about an 8 hour flight. You couldn't do it on a smaller plane.

[jmt18325]

Originally Posted by CoryB

That is the exact issue, Winnipeg to Puerto Vallarta is under a five hour flight. Instead of having those sun destinations leaving around 6:00 am get the Toronto, Vancouver, Chicago, etc flights out the building. Have the sun flights leaving between 9-11. Changing that up spreads the gate load at YWG out more and still gets people into their hotels around check in time with the possibility of a return flight full of passengers.

I moved this here before we get yelled at lol.

I'm thinking it probably has to do with plane timing for the airlines, but I could be wrong.

[Cyro]

Firefox has a slower refresh and load time than the employees I worked with at purolator at the airport..lol....

[CoryB]

It likely has to do with the volume of traffic to non-sun destinations with YWG. Having a bunch of planes leaves YVR, YYC, YYZ, etc and arrive at YWG for a 9:00 am gate call to somewhere sunny just doesn't work.

[roccerfeller]

Originally Posted by esquire

^ I have to admit I was a little surprised when the new terminal design was unveiled some years ago... I was expecting more gates than they ended up putting in. I'm not surprised that it's getting congested.

Doesn't surprise me either, though I don't travel from there regularly. I find its a pretty small airport for Winnipeg's size, other cities when they were Winnipeg's current size had larger airports at the time. But I guess the traffic just isn't there right now...hopefully it continues to increase. I would think once it hits 5 million passengers its reasonable to expect more gates. Its a beautiful airport though, and my favourite overall in the country.


CoryB, very interesting regarding the airport expansion stuff. Would be awesome if the WAA ever released a preliminary design of it.

I wonder how they would fix the traffic area though, I can see that getting very congested - it already is way too small for the traffic that seems to go through there during the times I've been though.

[buzzg]

I seem to remember when the airport opened they had a display of the "future" phases and its was essentially planned that a second terminal would be built to match and mirror the current one. Like it would make the 2 symmetrical to each other. That would be nice. Some airports the terminals are so drastically different it's weird.

[CoryB]

Originally Posted by roccerfeller

CoryB, very interesting regarding the airport expansion stuff. Would be awesome if the WAA ever released a preliminary design of it.

They did release the plans, likely when the terminal was under construction or newly opened. They have room for an additional one or two gates on the secure US end (east side) and several more gates on the Canada/International side (west).

There was also an older plan published about the now demolished terminal that had a raised street approach for departures like the new terminal and gate islands off the back like you see in other airports.

If I recall correctly the second terminal plan is essentially on the footprint of the old terminal but further back from the road. This is in part due to the arch on the new terminal and where it would land for a bridge/connection between the existing terminal and a future "terminal 2" Between "terminal 2" and the remaining buildings from the old airport is where the aviation museum eventually plans to move. It would likely have air side access from the south but would be between terminal 2 and current road.

At least that is my understanding of how the site all maps out.

[bomberjet]

http://www.waa.ca/uploads/ck/files/Reports/AirportDevelopmentPlan_Summary.pdf

From yesterdays convo on the old, removed runway. Here's a link to an old doc that shows the runaways. 07/25 was removed, the old east-west runway. Part of it remains as a taxi-way I would assume. The rest is gone and replaced with standard taxi-ways.

[BigG]

^^Thanks. Good find.

[CoryB]

Originally Posted by bomberjet

It looks to me like the terminal can be extended eastward a bit, making it symmetrical like you've said. Also looks like they will be getting close to the large tank farm. So wouldn't want to extend it too much that way.

Does anyone know if there were plans for a separate building, linked by a walkway of some sort? Or just a typical building type expansion.

The east side extension towards the tank farm is exclusively for the US preclearance area.

The other expansion would be a mix of adding to the new building, mainly on the west side, and if needed a second building. The near term plan, is warranted, would be to focus on expanding the current building. YWG would need to see a large and sustained increase in passenger volumes to warrant a second terminal, to the point that even if both New Leaf and Porter stared flying here we are likely talking just an expansion of the current building.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by CoryB

They did release the plans, likely when the terminal was under construction or newly opened. They have room for an additional one or two gates on the secure US end (east side) and several more gates on the Canada/International side (west).

There was also an older plan published about the now demolished terminal that had a raised street approach for departures like the new terminal and gate islands off the back like you see in other airports.

If I recall correctly the second terminal plan is essentially on the footprint of the old terminal but further back from the road. This is in part due to the arch on the new terminal and where it would land for a bridge/connection between the existing terminal and a future "terminal 2" Between "terminal 2" and the remaining buildings from the old airport is where the aviation museum eventually plans to move. It would likely have air side access from the south but would be between terminal 2 and current road.

At least that is my understanding of how the site all maps out.

Here's an interesting illustration from Verne Reimer's website that shows "phase 2" of the airport terminal... from what I can tell, it appears that the key differences are a slight westward expansion of the existing building to add more gates, as well as a small wing that extends south over the footprint of the old demolished terminal, apparently for use by smaller regional aircraft.



The actual terminal and parkade aren't quite the same as illustrated above so it may be a preliminary concept. But I'm sure that the same principle applies.

With an additional 5 jetbridges plus a bunch of regional gates, I think YWG would be equipped to handle the number of passengers it gets for a good long while... I can't see another terminal being built in less than 25 years.

[bomberjet]

Basically what I was thinking. Some sort of extension using a walkway, as opposed to full scale new building.

It's sort of funny now that the old terminal is gone. There's the stairwell and overpass to the hotel kind of sitting in no mans land.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by bomberjet

Basically what I was thinking. Some sort of extension using a walkway, as opposed to full scale new building.

It's sort of funny now that the old terminal is gone. There's the stairwell and overpass to the hotel kind of sitting in no mans land.

I was thinking it was weird that they'd just build that long finger for regional aircraft with nowhere to wait, but if you look carefully at the terminal it does appear that they'd build a bit of a bulge where the finger juts out from, presumably to serve as a small expanded waiting area?

I wonder why they wouldn't just build a proper new wing of the terminal extending south instead of such a rinky-dink little corridor?

[bomberjet]

Ya who knows. Like you said, that plan might be pout of date.

I notice they have one plane being way larger than the others. Gate 5 on that plan. So that location would be the only gate for the largest aircraft (which we rarely see)? Anyone know what size limit the other gates have?

[esquire]

Originally Posted by bomberjet

Ya who knows. Like you said, that plan might be pout of date.

I notice they have one plane being way larger than the others. Gate 5 on that plan. So that location would be the only gate for the largest aircraft (which we rarely see)? Anyone know what size limit the other gates have?

Yes, that is "the widebody gate". Whenever there is a diversion involving a 747, 777 or some such, that's where it goes. I haven't seen one at the terminal with my own eyes but I'm sure that is where the Air Transat vacation charter widebodies probably go. In the event that widebodies routinely began running to Winnipeg, I'm sure another couple of gates could be converted without too much trouble.

I'm not sure what the max is for the other gates, but they can handle a 737/320 with no trouble at all. If I had to make an uninformed guess I'd say that perhaps they top out at smaller widebodies like a 767? Beyond that there is a considerable leap in size to the 747/777/380 types of aircraft.

[jmt18325]

I believe the end gate can also be used for widebodies.