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Flying standby

An airport at the north end of the Sea to Sky corridor may finally get off the ground

Since 1978 administrators in the Sea to Sky corridor have been trying to organize an air service from Pemberton that would help grow tourism in Whistler and the corridor in general.

For most of the past 27 years only one company, Prime Air, has been attempting to start that air service.

But in the past year – spurred in part by the Olympics – there have been several key developments. Major carriers such as Westjet and Alaska Airlines have shown an interest in providing service into Pemberton, Intrawest made a presentation to the Pemberton council, federal and provincial politicians are taking notice, one Whistler councillor has started talking about an airport in Whistler and there have been a variety of consultants’ reports. Tourism Whistler has also shown an interest.

Despite all the rhetoric no partnerships or managing bodies have been formed, no funding has been announced and no major upgrades have started. But on April 25 Pemberton and Whistler councils will be sitting down to discuss the Pemberton airport and other regional transport issues. It’s the first real step that Whistler and Pemberton councils have taken to understand each other’s position. It may even lead to a joint task force.

The idea for a meeting was first muted by Pemberton Councillor Mark Blundell about a month ago, after Whistler had started investigating the possibility of building its own airport. A Whistler airport was raised by Councillor Nick Davies just before Christmas, some months after Intrawest, Westjet and Alaska Airlines had made presentations to Pemberton.

The Pemberton council is strapped for money, has a variety of development proposals it’s dealing with and a rapidly expanding population. Arguably the biggest card it can play is the airport, but it must be done carefully and strategically. For these reasons, and perhaps others, the presentations by Westjet, Alaska and Intrawest were received but no action has been taken.

From this situation was born Davies’s suggestion for a Whistler airport. Davies, a lawyer by trade and a recreational pilot, believes he has a strong case for an airport in the Brandywine/Callaghan area south of Whistler. In early February, with Whistler’s community monitoring report showing exactly how much the resort economy has dropped off in recent years, Davies said on national radio that he thought an airport could be one way of re-igniting Whistler’s economy.

In March, Whistler council was asked to approve a $20,000 study into the technical feasibility of a Whistler airport in the Brandywine/Callaghan area. Davies was the only councillor to vote in favour of it. He slammed the other councillors for ignoring the facts presented in the monitoring report and for being closed minded.

But there’s a feeling now that the RMOW, perhaps with help from Tourism Whistler, may have a second look at financing the study – after meeting with Pemberton councillors. Because while the airport in Pemberton may be able to service Whistler and the type of planes people envision flying here, an airport south of town might do the job better.

One of the people helping to evaluate the Pemberton Airport is Mel Feddersen. Feddersen runs Vancouver Airport Services and has 30 years of experience in airport planning. He has been hired to devise an action plan for the Pemberton Airport, which should be presented to council next week. Fedderson said his report should, above all, spark some "political consultation."

"I think to be fair to Pemberton, we had to prove technical feasibility before we could talk about the rest of it in this exercise," said Feddersen.

"But I told them last September that if you can’t build this airport to service 737s then the discussion stops, and it doesn’t really matter what rhetoric is out there."

He added that this was still just the start of a process to get an airport functioning in this area.

"I think that political consultation is going to have to change pretty soon… because the reality is also that the economic impact (of an airport) in the region is going to be large," Feddersen said.

TW interested

Tourism Whistler President Barrett Fisher confirmed that TW’s board of directors, which includes two members from Intrawest, is interested in helping fund an investigation into an airport in Whistler.

"Tourism Whistler has identified air access as a strategic priority in our 2005 business plan," said Fisher. "As a result we have analyzed key target markets, reviewed competitive air access into YVR (Vancouver), including frequency and pricing, and have struck an Air Access Committee made up of our board and senior staff to identify future airline partnership and promotional opportunities.

"Regarding the proposed opportunity of building an airport in Whistler our board of directors has expressed interest in further investigating this opportunity, as direct air access into Whistler, combined with an improved Sea to Sky Highway, would very much improve overall access and transportation options for both our leisure and meetings guests.

"There would still need to be a great deal of research and analysis conducted, however, before any decision could be made as to whether a Whistler airport is even feasible.

"But TW will work closely with our partners, the RMOW and Whistler-Blackcomb… and we are prepared to assist in collecting research, and to participate financially into a technical review of airport feasibility within Whistler."

If there is one certainty in this debate about an airport it is that it will have to involve a lot of money and a lot of partners.

Approximately $7 million has been invested in the Pemberton airport to date, and yet there still is no air service. The Pemberton council has also admitted it doesn’t have "any (more) money" to pay for upgrades. So there’s not only the question of whether the airport can be made to handle commercial airliners, where is the money going to come from for the upgrades? And if the money is invested who’s going to run the facility?

Studies of other regional airports with existing runways suggest that airport authorities often spend more than $20 million to get significant commercial air services started. And then there are the seat guarantees needed to convince an airline to service the destination.

To start from scratch with a regional airport, $50 million-$80 million are more appropriate estimates.

Despite the cost, Whistler-Blackcomb COO Dave Brownlie said money for an airport won’t be a problem – it’s the co-operation and forming partnerships that’s the issue.

"You talk about estimates for Pemberton Airport (upgrade) being $12 million-$14 million, but that’s not a lot of money (when you consider) they’re spending $600 million on the highway and they’re spending $55 million on a bob-luge track," said Brownlie.

"Governments are for supporting infrastructure that people can then grow their businesses on, because at the end of the day the more successful the businesses are, the more the government gets back in income tax, in GST, PST and all those things, so it becomes a win-win.

"I think this is a perfect opportunity for a public-private partnership where you go to the federal government and provincial government and then find where local government plays a role and private enterprise also gets involved."

The federal Liberals have talked a lot about supporting Western Canada and Brownlie said an airport could be a way of capitalizing on this initiative.

"But we’ve got to work together and put a plan together first," said Brownlie. "Somebody’s not going to come and put this thing in our lap… that’s the reason why people haven’t come forward with money yet."

While the Pemberton council might not be getting any concrete responses from the provincial government, Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon and the Minister for Small Business and Economic Development, John Les, are both well versed on what could happen with an airport in this area. Falcon has already identified a specific fund that could be used to help upgrade or build an airport.

"We have a $50 million fund, called Transportation Partnerships Program, in my ministry where we invest in airports throughout the province," said Falcon. "We can use this fund for all community airports and regional airports. For example, I just announced $330,000 for Pitt Meadows airport, I put $167,000 into Kamloops, $2 million into Prince George, $16,000 into Comox.

"So I think we’re willing and eager to work with them and to help them put together a business plan that makes sense for the taxpayer. I think that the possibilities are there for the Pemberton Airport to be used much more strategically, especially with 2010," said Falcon.

"My understanding is that the folks there are working on that and are working with Intrawest to determine what level of interest they may have in participating in a business plan to upgrade the airport."

From a small business perspective Les was equally excited about the prospects for public-private partnerships.

"The spin-offs from Whistler and the spin-offs from the Olympics and just the fact that it’s a very beautiful place to live means that there’s a great future ahead for Pemberton," said Les.

"Specifically with regards to their airport I’ve had those discussions… and we as a government, and Premier Campbell in particular, are very interested because we recognize that airports are key to helping people move around our province."

In his report to Pemberton council last June consultant Bill Neale suggested a number of other funds and organizations that could help support an airport initiative in this area, including: Tourism B.C., the Small Port and Airport Capital Assistance Program, the federal ACAP (Airport Capital Assistance Program) and VANOC (2010 Winter Olympic Transportation Committee) .

Neale, as well as other transport officials, have also said that it’s important to remember that properly managed airports do make money, particularly when the Olympics are involved.

But Neale’s report also highlighted the need for more information and data before decisions on the Pemberton Airport’s future can be made. Neale wrote that a general lack of sufficient resources, weather information, expertise, marketing and circumstance had led to, or become obstacles in building the airport.

Potential still there

Despite the financial and physical constraints facing the Pemberton Airport people in the airline industry see potential. Last year the director of Capacity Planning with Alaska Airlines, Bruce Wetsel, told Pique Newsmagazine that his company was "interested in experimenting with daily services in and out of Pemberton airport and would also be prepared to base a $50 million aircraft there."

Wetsel has spent a lifetime planing and scheduling airline routes around the world for various airlines and was confident the Pemberton airport had a "better than average chance" of succeeding.

He said there was still a lot of work to be done but he alluded to the fact that airlines could fly into Pemberton from anywhere, including places such as Germany and South America.

"There’s a lot of things that need to happen before we can get close to making an announcement but I can see us starting with the Q400 turbo prop aircraft, which are the ones Horizon use," he said.

"Then maybe building up into the 737-700s as a follow on, which is a 120-seat jet aircraft and it’s super quiet."

Wetsel confirmed that airlines would likely experiment with daily services during the winter season, at least to start.

"It’d be a combination of things initially, you could do it once or twice a week and that would be on a guarantee of sale basis."

Alaska Airlines is based in Seattle, which offers more connections to American cities than does YVR in Vancouver, but Wetsel said he could see Pemberton airport accommodating a variety of carriers. Westjet, for example, could offer more Canadian connections.

One of the biggest obstacles airlines face in flying the Sea-to-Sky corridor is navigation. But airlines such as Alaskan and Westjet are among the first airlines to employ the use of Required Navigation Procedures, which is new technology used for getting in and out of difficult terrain.

"RNP is a precise landing system on an aircraft that helps us with scheduling reliability and we use it in about seven airports in Alaska," Westel said. "This system gives us about 99 per cent schedule completion, and we serve some pretty challenging airports in Alaska.

"RNP is onboard hardware but it can use GPS technology and all sorts of other components to create a corridor for the airplane to fly down for a precise landing."

Westel said establishing flights to a new airport usually takes about six to nine months once the infrastructure is in place.

The other company involved in the Pemberton Airport is Prime Air, a fixed based operator that specializes in ground operations.

Prime Air approached Pemberton in 1993 about starting an air service and building a terminal building. The Village of Pemberton and Prime Air subsequently entered into a variable 30-year lease agreement on Oct. 29, 1993. To date, no scheduled air service has started, although Prime Air has been in discussions with a small airline about flights between Seattle and Pemberton.

So while the idea of air service to the north end of the Sea to Sky corridor has more proponents than ever, and the need for air service appears to be more urgent than ever before, the number of commercial airline flights remains the same as it was in 1978. But there may finally be enough momentum in the next few months to get this airport idea off the ground.



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