Calgary International Airport II

[cyeg66]

Landing on a single runway reduces the arrival rate (if done properly) into the low 30's/hour. Essentially, this is 2/3rd's of what we do now, and a half dozen less than when we ran crossing runways. Remember crossing runways, when more people were actually affected by noise...?
Landing on a single runway, running successive arrivals as closely together as possible, is inherently more difficult than staggering 2sets of arrivals to 2 runways. And my quoted "rate" is in ideal weather conditions. Places a lot more pressure on the arrival controller than what we currently do. Hate to sound like an old battle axe but it brings me back to my rant of a few pages ago. A parallel was built at great expense and at a time when it was definitely needed. At the time, YYC led the country (easily) in missed approaches, delays, and likely operational incidents (losses of separation) because of the previous runway configuration and traffic demand. These should have mostly gone away with the new pavement. My concern is it seems the city and airport are about to take a step backward in safety and efficiency to appease the minority. That's as nicely as I can put it. I'm just gonna move on from the topic. I'll try not to care, but I'll be laughing my ass off when complaints about delays (remember those?) start to roll in.

[Cage]

Originally Posted by hoboman27

Well to be honest, the airport authority is in a monopoly position, they can always jack up rates and what not if they really needed the money...

As for the trials, I'm sure YYC_Engineer was there too, so let's ask him to have us posted on that.

Good questions Cage, and now I know what you look like...

Airports don't have a monopoly on connection traffic.

Airports that jack up rates too much tend to get dehubbed by one or more major airlines that provide connection traffic. Southwest left DEN and SFO due to high fees. Contintental dehubbed DEN when the transfer from Stapleton to DIA quadrupled rates overnight. AC built up YUL when YYz rates got excessive and returned to YYZ when the long-term commercial agreement was signed in 2014.

As for the public trials, I will keep you guys on the SSP forum posted. The smaller group trials that Atkinson and Mosley invited me too will have to remain private, but I will post details about anything I see that's new or exciting features at the new terminal.

Thanks for the comments on my questions.

Re: call-to-gate, an even somewhat savvy traveller can very quickly determine which tail is going where and sit at the correct gate... nothing is stopping you from doing so, right?

Also still funny to me that the expansion matches YEG's total usable bridge count of 24.

[Cage]

Originally Posted by yyc_engineer

Also, I was amazed to learn about the rough financial situation of GTAA! Didn't even know airport authorities could operate at a loss!

If the GTAA were a government organization, they would have gone bankrupt about 18 months after the airport redevelopment was finished.

For clarity, the GTAA does not operate at loss, however with the capital expenditures on Infrastructure, the company has accumulated more debt than assets. Much like the city cannot operate at a loss, but can borrow funds long term to fund large road projects.

Originally Posted by Bigtime

Cage, you should have made multiple mentions to a "Plan B" to bug Ken King.

Funny you should mention the CalgaryNext angle, I did some quick edits to my question/speech due to the revelation about CalgaryNext being uneconomical am.ong with the rising provincial and federal deficits.

Finally, I also recently learned (from reading the yucca report that is in Counicl package) that David Swanson left the Calgary Aiport Chariman job to go over to
Calgary Next. There are many connections between Calgary Airport and CSEC.

[suburbia]

Originally Posted by Cage

There are many connections between Calgary Airport and CSEC.

Please elaborate.

[Cage]

Originally Posted by Acey

Re: call-to-gate, an even somewhat savvy traveller can very quickly determine which tail is going where and sit at the correct gate... nothing is stopping you from doing so, right?

I have not heard call to gate mentioned in a long time. Much like consolidation of domestic preboard security to current Us pre-clearance, the idea might have been quietly dropped due to opposition. As well, call to gate will also become first call to leave the food court and retail area. I predict a lot more pax will be individually mentioned through final call and potentially miss their flight because of the attraction of the retail area.

WestJet will be the hardest to determine which gate to will be your departure gate. From the Q&A session with CAA AGM, the international concourse will be able to handle domestic arrivals. WS winter schedule has 6-8 transborder departures on the 10-11am bank. Some of these flights arrive from domestic airports on quick turnarounds to US destinations. I can envision 3 WS departures from the international concourse and 4 WS departures from transborder concourse. If pax pick the wrong gate area, they could be in for a long walk/run to the correct gate.

[Cage]

Originally Posted by suburbia

Please elaborate.

The 2 organizations share board members, executives, and have connections through Calgary chamber of commerce just to name a few.

[Blader]

Originally Posted by Cage

The 2 organizations share board members, executives, and have connections through Calgary chamber of commerce just to name a few.

I've always thought that the City declining the offer to run the airport authority was a huge mistake. Now we have an ex-officio opposition which is 19th century based. Not governed by the City. That said, it's too late!

[Cage]

Originally Posted by Blader

I've always thought that the City declining the offer to run the airport authority was a huge mistake. Now we have an ex-officio opposition which is 19th century based. Not governed by the City. That said, it's too late!

Most of the reasons for the city not getting into the airport operations business were very valid. By having city of Calgary decline in the early days, it forced the federal government to re-evaluate their privatization plans. In the case of Calgary, council of the day was primarily concerned with debt associated with Aiport redevelopment encumbering city finances. Think of it as trying to decide whether to finance a new international terminal or financing East Village.

By having the Aiport report to Calgary Chamber, business executives made up the majority of the board and set strategic direction for the early days of the airport. This has primarily resulted in Calgary Airpot Authority retaining financial stability throughout the redevelopment efforts. Financial stability is what will set YYC apart from the competition.

For comparison, Greater Toronto Aiport Aithority was initially lead by developers. The developers created a great Aiport, but the costs were sky high and the debt has nearly bankrupted the airport authority.

[Nick]

No matter what extra waiver is obtained for departures of Rwy 17L, people forget there is a strong west wind aloft for about 60% of the time, no matter what the surface wind is. So when aircraft get airborne, they all drift to the east a fair amount. I've heard RNAV sids mentioned somewhere where aircraft could depart on an RNAV track and that sounds like an option. However we have no rules for simultaneous parallel independent departures (SPIDS) using two RNAV tracks that diverge by less than 15 degrees, so some would have to be created and proven safe.

We have an RNAV departure already off the 35L end that uses tracks, and sure enough aircraft that use it seem to drift as well. Navigation error?

[hoboman27]

Originally Posted by Cage

Airports don't have a monopoly on connection traffic.

Airports that jack up rates too much tend to get dehubbed by one or more major airlines that provide connection traffic. Southwest left DEN and SFO due to high fees. Contintental dehubbed DEN when the transfer from Stapleton to DIA quadrupled rates overnight. AC built up YUL when YYz rates got excessive and returned to YYZ when the long-term commercial agreement was signed in 2014.

As for the public trials, I will keep you guys on the SSP forum posted. The smaller group trials that Atkinson and Mosley invited me too will have to remain private, but I will post details about anything I see that's new or exciting features at the new terminal.

Thanks for the comments on my questions.

True, though Calgary does come from a position where their published aeronautical fees are one of the lowest when compared to other major Canadian airports, so they have room to grow. The other tool they have is incentives, they could jack up fees while still offer incentives to the major hub airlines to soften the blow (so the little guys bear more of the burden).

[lubicon]

Originally Posted by Nick

No matter what extra waiver is obtained for departures of Rwy 17L, people forget there is a strong west wind aloft for about 60% of the time, no matter what the surface wind is. So when aircraft get airborne, they all drift to the east a fair amount. I've heard RNAV sids mentioned somewhere where aircraft could depart on an RNAV track and that sounds like an option. However we have no rules for simultaneous parallel independent departures (SPIDS) using two RNAV tracks that diverge by less than 15 degrees, so some would have to be created and proven safe.

We have an RNAV departure already off the 35L end that uses tracks, and sure enough aircraft that use it seem to drift as well. Navigation error?

Originally Posted by cyeg66

Landing on a single runway reduces the arrival rate (if done properly) into the low 30's/hour. Essentially, this is 2/3rd's of what we do now, and a half dozen less than when we ran crossing runways. Remember crossing runways, when more people were actually affected by noise...?
Landing on a single runway, running successive arrivals as closely together as possible, is inherently more difficult than staggering 2sets of arrivals to 2 runways. And my quoted "rate" is in ideal weather conditions. Places a lot more pressure on the arrival controller than what we currently do. Hate to sound like an old battle axe but it brings me back to my rant of a few pages ago. A parallel was built at great expense and at a time when it was definitely needed. At the time, YYC led the country (easily) in missed approaches, delays, and likely operational incidents (losses of separation) because of the previous runway configuration and traffic demand. These should have mostly gone away with the new pavement. My concern is it seems the city and airport are about to take a step backward in safety and efficiency to appease the minority. That's as nicely as I can put it. I'm just gonna move on from the topic. I'll try not to care, but I'll be laughing my ass off when complaints about delays (remember those?) start to roll in.

Thanks gents, it was an honest question and I appreciate the answer.

[Johnny Aussie]

YYC has released its March 2016 figures.

Another month of growth. Each month in 2016 so far has shown growth.

What doom and gloom?

Transborder continues to shrink and international has ground to a halt but domestic is still turboing along.

Overall up 2.9%
Domestic up 6.3%
Transborder down 6.3%
International up 1.4%

http://www.yyc.com/en-us/media/factsfigures/passengerstatistics.aspx

[suburbia]

Originally Posted by Johnny Aussie

Overall up 2.9%
Domestic up 6.3%
Transborder down 6.3%
International up 1.4%

http://www.yyc.com/en-us/media/factsfigures/passengerstatistics.aspx

Good overall, but really quite disappointed transborder is down even in era of low $

[yyc_engineer]

Originally Posted by suburbia

Good overall, but really quite disappointed transborder is down even in era of low $

Not just low loonie, the #1 transborder destination is Houston. So yeah, there is that.

All things considered it is amazing we are having overall growth so far this year.

International numbers should be further boosted starting in May with WestJet to Gatwick. Also, Hainan and Edelweiss both starting in June. Sunwing is doing less flying this summer though. It will be interesting to see the numbers going into the Fall.

[Mazrim]

I walked past the new...racetrack is the word I want to use (aka the transport system, it just looked like that to us as we walked by), and I was wondering - how does it work going between the old and new terminals? My brain tells me it's post-security so I was curious about international and domestic traffic using it.

As a side note, I was on a CRJ705 and it was quite comfortable. I imagine these days it has more legroom than usual?

Originally Posted by Mazrim

As a side note, I was on a CRJ705 and it was quite comfortable. I imagine these days it has more legroom than usual?

Versus other CRJ9 (identical aircraft) it does indeed... but not for long. They're being reconfigured.

[Johnny Aussie]

Maybe not as sexy as new flights to PEK, ZRH or LGW...

Effective 6 June. 4 weekly flights on YYC-YET (had to look that one up).

Integra Air now offering direct flights to three cities from YYC.

http://www.integraair.com/calgary-edson/

[evolv]

Originally Posted by suburbia

Good overall, but really quite disappointed transborder is down even in era of low $

Really???? Exactly what I'd expect. Harder for Canadians to justify going to the states. Makes it more expensive. I

[Cage]

Originally Posted by Mazrim

I walked past the new...racetrack is the word I want to use (aka the transport system, it just looked like that to us as we walked by), and I was wondering - how does it work going between the old and new terminals? My brain tells me it's post-security so I was curious about international and domestic traffic using it.

As a side note, I was on a CRJ705 and it was quite comfortable. I imagine these days it has more legroom than usual?

The transport system is branded "YYC Link". The international terminal terminus station for YYC Link is immediately beside the connections hall. The connections hall is post security and will have both Canadian and US Customs booths.

While the cRJ795 is being reconfigured, business class and preferred seats will get more legroom while basic economy gets less legroom ( but less than 1/2 the seats are basic economy).