YXS passenger traffic is up, President points to strong economy

YXS is seeing more and more people heading in and out of the city.

The Prince George Airport recorded 462,007 passengers in 2016, a 3.5% bump from 445,929 in 2014. Air Canada has recently purchased larger planes and West Jet added two more daily flights, which means there are about 20% more seats. Even so, YXS President John Gibson says there are still more passengers than spots available during peak hours.

Gibson believes these numbers are good for the city. The economy must be doing well if people are flying.

“We don’t see on a day-to-day basis the big announcements of big mines opening or the liquid natural gas but there’s a definite underlying tone in the community where more warehouse space is being picked up, the traffic is buoyant, so the economy, in a real sort of strong sense, is stronger and better than the big, major project bang that happens in other communities so we’re pretty happy with the way that we’re growing.”

There were actually about 8,800 fewer passengers in 2016 than 2015, something Gibson says is because of the Canada Winter Games. If you exclude the 15,000 athletes that came to Prince George, the airport has seen steady growth over eight years.

Gibson says that trend is carrying over in 2017. He notes that passenger traffic is up 3.78% in the first quarter of 2017 over last year.

“March was up 5.4%, April was up 9% and those are big growths in passenger traffic year-over-year so to me. It’s a sign that the economy is really doing well right now.”

With numbers like these, Gibson believes it’s time to look into expansion. During Monday night’s meeting, Council asked him about flights to places like Fort McMurray, Alberta, something Gibson says isn’t in the cards right now. He was more optimistic about flights to bigger, closer cities. When discussing possible trips to Edmonton, he says there’s a 60% possibility of that happening.