Artist's rendering of Victoria International Airport's departures area terminal expansion. Construction on the $10-to-$12-million project is expected to start in the second half of 2017. Victoria Airport Authority
2016 a record-breaker for Victoria International Airport
MIKE KOZAKOWSKI, CITIFIED.CA
Published January 23, 2017
The Victoria International Airport welcomed a record-breaking 1.86-million passengers in 2016, according to figures released by the Victoria Airport Authority.
“From our perspective, we’re a little surprised by last year’s passenger volumes, but in a good way,” says James Bogusz, Vice-President of Operations and Development at the Victoria Airport Authority (VAA).
“We expected that the resource-based economy in Alberta, which has traditionally played a large role in passenger traffic at Victoria International, would have impacted our numbers, but we haven’t seen the sort of drop-off we thought we might.”
Passenger volumes at British Columbia’s second busiest airport rose by a whopping 8.5% over 2015 to 1,856,421, eclipsing the previous period by 145,596 passengers. The strongest market was domestic, which saw a total of 1,547,108 passengers, followed by 282,742 passengers flying to and from the United States. International passengers totalled 26,571 for the year.
As annual passenger counts approach two million the VAA is set to begin a departures area expansion in order accommodate more room for departing passengers and additional capacity for aircraft.
“The glassed-in departures lounge will be expanded to the north in order to accommodate our passenger growth. With that expansion we’ll also have the opportunity to increase airside food and beverage services, and our gate-to-aircraft ratio will increase to one gate for every aircraft,” Bogusz said.
The $10-to-$12-million project is still the design and engineering phase, but Bogusz anticipates construction will start in the second half of 2017 with completion slated for late 2018 or early 2019.
Also planned for 2017 are improvements to the airport’s secondary runway, identified as 14-32, which includes approach lighting for aircraft and can handle operations of smaller turboprops and jets. The runway will be resurfaced and grooved, a practice that improves operations during wet weather, and lighting replaced with modern LED variants.
Victoria International Airport, situated in North Saanich on Victoria’s Saanich Peninsula, is British Columbia’s second busiest airport and ranks in the top-15 of Canada’s busiest aviation facilities. C
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