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Regular flights to Pemberton could start by Nov. 1

Second proposal for air service pitched but decision needed quickly
pembertonairport

Pemberton council has been told by a group of businessmen that they could have a five-day-a-week passenger aircraft service operating out of Pemberton airport by Nov. 1 st .

The hitch is that Pemberton council has got to approve the group’s plan by July 15 th or there will not be enough time before winter to get the operation running.

Blaine Haug from Prime Air, Jim Bond from the Ventana Construction, Lawrence Black from Black’s Pub and Restaurant in Whistler and Peter Anderson from Galvin Air in Seattle presented Pemberton council with a proposal this week that could become one of the most pivotal pre-Olympics developments in the Sea to Sky corridor.

Their proposal would use aircraft from Voyager Airways to fly between Pemberton and Seattle’s Boeing Field.

This was the second such proposal Pemberton council has seen. Intrawest, Alaska Airlines and Westjet pitched a similar proposal two months ago. Alaska Airlines is also based in Seattle.

In the meantime, airport consultant Bill Neale and Pemberton council have been working on a 10-year plan for the airport.

The findings of Neale’s report are expected on July 6 th . Councillor Mark Blundell, who is also the president of the Airport Committee, said Pemberton council will not be prepared to make recommendations until they have seen Neale’s report.

"We’re listening to everybody but we don’t want to be making any decisions until we see how the report’s going to be and how we’re going to get to where we want to be in 10 years," said Blundell.

Haug said the purpose of his meeting with council was to deliver a clear message: "We’re ready to go now, and we believe we can make it happen."

"We want scheduled charters up and running five days a week for this winter season," said Haug.

"But we have a lot of work to do in the meantime. We need to work with Tourism Whistler, we need to work with Rez-Rez, we need to work with the hotel people.

"We want to try and mirror what they’ve done in Sun Peaks last year, they guaranteed Horizon (Airlines) to fly into Kamloops so they could service their resort and they had the best season they’ve ever had.

"I know there’s a lot of guys around here (who) are poised and ready to help us out, we don’t have many of them formally identified yet but that’s what we’re going to pursue in the next two or three weeks."

Haug said he would be approaching a number of the larger hotels in Whistler in attempt to pre-sell or "guarantee" seats.

"We’re probably going to approach the Four Seasons, the Chateau, the Westin, the new Hilton – all the majors and some of the secondary hotels to see what their interest is in helping bring some of their clients up from Seattle," he said.

"Because a lot of these hotels have existing clients and if they offer them a chance to get here within an hour and a half, they could probably pre-sell six to seven seats each and that would take the pressure off us.

"If we could sell 30 seats on a plane each day it minimizes our risk dramatically and the success factor of what we’re trying to do goes way up…. That’s what they did in Sun Peaks."

The major differences between Intrawest’s proposal and Haug’s proposal is the type of aircraft they want to use, the timing and the creation of an airport authority.

Intrawest wants to extend the runway and revamp the whole area before starting services with 737-700 aircraft. Intrawest also wants to create an airport authority, which would effectively control what happens at the airport.

Haug wants to start immediately with Dash 7 aircraft from Voyager Airways and then expand the service gradually as demand increases. Pemberton council would retain direct control over the airport.

"We worked it back to the 15 th of July, so if they (the council) can say by then that we’re going to give these lands to Galvin, our fixed base operator, to develop so we can have a fuel farm, so that we can have a de-icing area so we can have ground handling and check in, check out.

"Then we could have Lawrence Black do his food and beverage and then we could do all our landscaping and construction done with Ventana and we’ll be ready to go.

"But we need an answer from them pretty quickly so that we could build these things while’s the weather’s good."

Haug said transportation to and from the airport had already been organized and so had the refuelling operations.

"BP (British Petroleum) does Galvin’s fuelling in Seattle and if this is approved then this will actually be BP’s first aviation hub in Canada."

Lawrence Black has been working on-and-off with the Pemberton airport for almost a decade and he agreed this was an incredibly exciting time.

"After all these years it’s finally happening, or it appears that way, and I think everybody’s excited about it," said Black.

"Maybe 15 years ago when it first all started it was a little premature but now it’s time and I’m definitely anxious to be involved and get it opened."

While it is clear that a lot has to be done, Black said the project at Pemberton was actually a lot simpler than many people might realize.

"I’m more or less ready to go now I just need the okay from council and we could start to work on the design and construction."