The West Kootenay Regional Airport, located in Castlegar, is to undergo expansion on its taxiway and apron in spring 2024. The choice to work in spring is due to the warm temperatures in spring reason being to avoid any long closures or affecting airlines in that duration. Though throughout the year of 2023, a good share of planning and designing for the project has been done in readiness for the coming year.
Scope
The main reason for the expansion is to meet federal regulations and to accommodate more aircrafts at once rather than causing an airline traffic. The objective is to expand the apron in order to hold more airplanes and allow them to pass behind one another. The taxiway is also to be expanded, to reduce car traffic from oncoming passengers and passengers than exit the airport with vehicles.
Also read: World’s oldest airports still in operation
Funding
The West Kootenay Regional Airport was funded $6 million by the Union of BC Municipalities and additional $2.35 million was granted to the airport by Government of Canada.
Planning of the project started this year and kicks off in 2024 in hopes to be half-way through by 2025. Though it isn’t the only one to receive a generous amount of funding since the Government of Canada decided to fund eight projects to increase air safety. Such projects include: Campbell River Airport, Kamloops Airport, Tofino-Long Beach Airport and so on.
More about the project
The West Kootenay Regional Airport, also known as Castlegar Airport, mainly serves the West Kootenay region, as well as Castlegar, Nelson and Trail. It’s mainly operated by the City of Castlegar. Due to its mountainous terrain there’s almost no way of coming in a straight approach when landing an aircraft, making it the most challenging in North America. When first created the airport was really only set for night time operations in 2006, but in 2010, because of the challenging approach to land it was changed to day time operations for pilots to have a clear view of the runaway and landing area.
