YXS CEO seeking additional help from federal government

Airports across Canada including Prince George are looking for more support from Ottawa.

The Canadian Airports Council (CAC) is proposing further action including permanent rent relief, loan or bond guarantees as well as funding for small airports like YXS.

PG Airport Authority CEO, Gordon Duke explained to MyPGNow.com why permanent rent relief is needed.

“Given the timeline of recovery from COVID-19, we’re looking at five or six years before those numbers were experienced in 2019,”

Last year, 496,714 people went through YXS, a decline of nearly two percent from 2018 where over 506-thousand passengers came through our airport.

Duke said YXS saw a 90% drop in passenger traffic last month, with a similar result expected during May.

“We’ve seen continued deterioration. Air Canada has pulled its schedule for the month of May and WestJet continues to operate on a limited basis, we’re hopeful that June we will see that turnaround until restrictions are lifted.”

In March of 2019, 44,817 passengers flew in and out of YXS, compared to 24,964 during the same month this year.

Central Mountain Air has been temporarily suspended until June 7th while Pacific Coastal Airlines is grounded until at least the end of the month.

In April, Prince George was one of 21 airport authorities that saw its ground lease rents waived until the end of the year.

Duke states some infrastructure help is next on the list.

“If we can get some support for infrastructure growth that we had planned in any case in terms of the airfield, the terminal buildings, and the grounds, in general, that will not only be to help to the airport but to local businesses.”

“Although our revenue has disappeared our fixed costs remained consistent as well fully maintain the airport for medivac operations, BC forestry, the tanker base here, charter flights. We are still fully operational.”

Before COVID-19, Canada’s airports supported nearly 200-thousand jobs resulting in 13-billion in wages and seven billion in taxes to all levels of government according to the CAC.