Hamilton airport’s runways getting busier
Mandated work being done, but no expansion yet
Between moving cargo and passengers, the two runways at John C. Munro Hamilton International Airport in Mount Hope get a lot of use.
“We’re on a growth trajectory,” said Cathie Puckering, the airport’s president and CEO.
In 2016, there were 333,368 passengers flying out of the airport — and by 2018, that number was well more than doubled at 725,630.
Not only that, but “over the past three years, we’ve seen a 20 per cent growth in our movement (of cargo),” Puckering said.
One of the biggest reasons for growth is that the airport doesn’t have any curfew restrictions, meaning that planes can fly day and night, which Puckering said “is great for us, because a business wants to utilize its asset 24-7.”
Of course, that means the planes have to keep moving.
“Minutes matter,” Puckering said, adding that the planes are only making money for the cargo companies or airlines when they’re actually flying, which is why a quick turnaround is so important.
A big part of that is having the infrastructure in place. The airport has two runways: one is 1.8 kilometres long, and the other is three kilometres. The shorter one had some work done in 2019.
Abu Sanneh, manager of airport planning and regulatory affairs, co-ordinated the project.
“The entire asphalt was taken up. We upgraded some of the lights, and have built a runwayend safety area,” he said, explaining that this is to slow planes down if there was ever an emergency.
“It’s part of improving the safety of the airfield as regulated,” Sanneh said.
There are some governmentmandated improvements that must be completed on all airport runways by 2022. Locally, the longer runway will be completely redone this year, and the shorter one is slated for 2021.
Mount Hope is already a bit ahead of the curve with some of its systems. It’s not uncommon for planes to be diverted to it from other airports when there’s bad weather conditions, like fog.
That’s because “we have an instrument landing system,” Sanneh said. The system is specialized equipment on the ground that “talks” to equipment on the planes, making pilots “able to land the plane when they can’t see.”
He added that there are many different reasons why the planes might use the longer or shorter runways, including the size of the plane and their destination.
Puckering said, “the city would love for us to expand (the shorter) runway.”
However, at the moment, “it can accommodate all the aircraft we have in Hamilton,” and until they’re certain they could recuperate the costs, it’s a project for another day.
“Investing in a runway extension is an investment of hundreds of millions of dollars. It’s something that would be done at a time when the business requires it,” Puckering said.