FILE PHOTO - Travellers queue at the Kelowna airport, Wednesday, July 28, 2021.

(HOWARD ALEXANDER / iNFOnews.ca)

The Kelowna airport is in the midst of a major terminal expansion and other improvements including a new hotel as it tries to keep up with forecast growth in passengers and flights. The airport plans on spending $422 million over the next decade on airport improvements.

The Kelowna International Airport added new flights this summer including routes to Prince George, Los Angeles and increased traffic to Seattle. These new routes come alongside the work to expand the airport’s terminal and improve runways.

Airport CEO Sam Samaddar said these rapid expansions are helping compensate for the hit the air travel industry took during the pandemic.

“So part of what we're seeing is a catch up for that. But the great work our air service team has done at the airport here continues to go after new routes and new cities serving Kelowna and the region,” he said.

The airport passed the two-million passenger mark last year and is the 10th busiest airport in the country.

This year the airport has seen more than a million passengers and a 3% growth compared to last year, according to a report from the Regional District of Central Okanagan.

READ MORE: Kelowna airport passed 2M passenger mark in 2023

Samaddar said they expect the growth to continue.

“It's important that the infrastructure stays ahead of the pace of growth that we've forecast,” he said. “If you don't have your infrastructure keep pace with the number of passengers that you have traveling through, you basically will create gridlock or the equivalent to a traffic jam on a road system.”

Samaddar said the airport analyzes where passengers are travelling to and from in order to pitch new routes to airlines.

“We continue to use that data to then look at what are some of the other routes that we don't have today that we need to serve going forward,” he said. “We also collect data from our partners here locally within the region and then look at selling that business plan to specific airlines who decide whether they're going to fly that route or not.”

Alaska Airlines announced flights from Kelowna to Seattle all year long on Aug. 15. These flights will be able to connect people to places like Hawaii, Chicago, Los Angeles and more. Alaska Airlines also announced daily flights from Kelowna to Los Angeles will start on Dec. 19, 2024. WestJet made a similar announcement on July 25 about daily flights from Kelowna to Seattle. Pacific Coastal Airlines announced its new route to Prince George on July 15.

Tax dollars are not being spent as the $422 million for airport improvements comes from the airport’s revenue and improvement fees which are included in ticket prices.

The improvement plan includes expanding the terminal by 35% and improving the runways. A new taxiway was completed in early July.

Samaddar said construction is on schedule.

“We're actually pretty well out of the ground and going vertical with steel work and other work that'll be coming,” he said. 

The airport is spending $6.4 million on fixing up three existing taxiways this year, and the work is expected to be complete in October.

Samaddar said a new hotel is going to be built next to the airport, and a new parkade with about 1,000 parking stalls.

The expansions are being rolled out in phases in order to make sure the airport doesn’t overextend its finances in case of unpredictable events like the WestJet air mechanic strike earlier this year.

READ MORE: WestJet aircraft mechanic strike continues to affect travellers in Kamloops, Okanagan

“Sometimes people will criticize us that we're not building big enough soon enough but really it's protecting the financial health of the airport itself, but also ensuring that our facilities stay paced with the growth that's required to support the region,” he said.

Samaddar said the air travel industry is unpredictable by nature, but the airport expands cautiously to compensate for that.

“With the various strikes of various airlines, some have passed us and some are on the horizon coming up. Those are things that we don't always forecast,” he said.

“We've been very, very careful.”

Click here for more information on the airport expansion project.

Click here for information on flights. 

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