Airport 2017

For those of us who rely on Kelowna International Airport for either business or pleasure, any time there’s an improvement to safety, it’s a good thing.

Everyone wants to arrive on time and alive.

The Central Okanagan regional district approved, Monday, a non-farm use application by YLW that will allow for a better runway approach lighting system.

Fifty approach lights will provide superior illumination than the seven lights that now point toward the runway for planes landing to the south. The present lights, YLW manager Sam Samaddar explains, could be mistaken for street lights by pilots.

The new lighting will be placed on nine hectares of farmland that’s owned by the City of Kelowna.

Additionally, an expanded safety area will be placed at the end of the runway that will comply with anticipated changes in federal aviation regulations.

In announcing the changes, a comparison was made to Halifax Stanfield International Airport where a near disaster occurred in March 2015 when an Air Canada jet crashed short of the runway. (Fortunately, nobody was killed.)

Although Halifax has more annual traffic — at least at the moment — it’s a reasonable comparison to Kelowna.

In 2010, Kelowna began The Drive to 1.6 Million program and the target for annual number of passengers was reached in 2016 at 1.7 million, and is expected to grow even higher by the end of this year.

When the campaign was launched, the goal was to reach that number by 2020 through a constant series of improvements.

Also new this month is a baggage hall. Although the public will never see it, the media was given a tour. The operation includes 700 metres of conveyor belts, a state-of-theart X-ray machine, and 36,000 square feet of space.

With a new coding system, it should mean there’s a lesser chance of lost luggage and we should be getting our bags sooner (which was seldom a problem to begin with at KLW.)

Forthcoming is the second phase of the departure lounge expansion which will provide more space between gates and funnelling domestic arrivals, thus meaning passengers won’t have to walk as far.

Many passengers consider flying to be a chore. It’s great to see the vast progress Kelowna International is making.