Comments on: ‘09 airport passenger traffic tied with ‘08 despite economic ills http://vibrantvictoria.ca/local-news/2009-airport-passenger-traffic-tied-with-2008-despite-economic-downturn/ Victoria's Online Cornerstone Wed, 15 Sep 2010 16:20:57 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Don http://vibrantvictoria.ca/local-news/2009-airport-passenger-traffic-tied-with-2008-despite-economic-downturn/comment-page-1/#comment-424 Don Mon, 01 Feb 2010 01:28:44 +0000 http://vibrantvictoria.ca/?p=1852#comment-424 I am baffled by the lack of direct access to major Canadian and nearby American cities from our airport. The airport authority is not doing enough to market the airport to Victorians and therefore it loses a lot of flyers who immediately choose to fly out of Seattle or Vancouver before even contemplating flying through Victoria. People automatically assume connecting in Vancouver and the added expense for having to take the 15 minute flight isn't worth it and go straight to the ferries. With a population nearing 400k our airport should be serving around 2.5 million passengers a year and connect travelers with Portland, Montreal, Los Angeles and Denver at a bare minimum. To fly longer distances our airport needs a longer runway. And the fact that the provincial government discounted the airports plea for funding to extend our runway suggests the government doesn't believe in the ability of this airport to actually utilize the added runway capacity often enough for many years to come. I am baffled by the lack of direct access to major Canadian and nearby American cities from our airport. The airport authority is not doing enough to market the airport to Victorians and therefore it loses a lot of flyers who immediately choose to fly out of Seattle or Vancouver before even contemplating flying through Victoria. People automatically assume connecting in Vancouver and the added expense for having to take the 15 minute flight isn’t worth it and go straight to the ferries.

With a population nearing 400k our airport should be serving around 2.5 million passengers a year and connect travelers with Portland, Montreal, Los Angeles and Denver at a bare minimum.

To fly longer distances our airport needs a longer runway. And the fact that the provincial government discounted the airports plea for funding to extend our runway suggests the government doesn’t believe in the ability of this airport to actually utilize the added runway capacity often enough for many years to come.

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