Why the Kelowna Airport Only Needs a Single Runway

[Dizzy1]

Last time that I was on a WJ 737 to YVR, it was about 1/3 full. Hard to make a profit like that. Fill the 78 seats of the Q-400 and use far less fuel for same route in almost the same time frame, its a no brainer.

Most flights I've been on were pretty much 3/4 full or better, a few times they were less than 1/2 - but your point is very valid - however, another factor is that they were to increase their frequency on some flights - YLW to YEG as an example has an extra couple of non-stops a day now.

[Dizzy1]

Small planes are terrifying. Landing in fog. Cant see anything. landing anyways. Yikes. Hopefully never again.

Thats what instruments are for ;)

[Urban Cowboy]

Small planes are terrifying. Landing in fog. Cant see anything. landing anyways. Yikes. Hopefully never again.

Thats what instruments are for ;)

You mean like horns?

[Dizzy1]

Thats what instruments are for ;)

You mean like horns?

[Glacier]

If you truly want to be considered an international airport, you need concrete runways. Asphalt just doesn't hold up if you expect to the city to grow 150% every two years as the Castanet forums expect it to do (because no one ever has unrealistic expectations on here).

There are eight concrete runways in BC:
1) YVR #1 = 11,500 ft long (partially asphalt)
2) YQQ (Comox) = 10,000 ft
3) YVR #2 = 9,940 ft
4) YXX (Abbotsford) = 9,596 ft (partially asphalt)
5) YVR #3 = 7,300 ft (partially asphalt)
6) YAZ #1 (Tofino) = 5,000ft
7) YAZ #2 = 4,999 ft
8) YAZ #3 = 4,997 ft

[luccisano]

As much as everyone is in agreement that a second runway is not necessary, around four years ago, after a overnight snowfall, an early morning Westjet flight slid off the end of the runway closing down the runway till late that day.
They needed to remove the aircraft which required jacking it up from the mud and move to a taxiway before flight arrivals and departures could resume. At least that is what I recollect.

So you say 80 so flights a day only use the runway, beware - when your flight that cannot come in is cancelled due to an incident like this, you may appreciate another viable runway. In this case, it ruined a connection out of Vancouver to get to Mexico on a charter flight.

So if we don't have room for another runway, let us say running parallel to the existing one (take over Anderson Road), then should we be spending so much for expansion and modernising the existing terminal when we may have to relocate it completely in 15 to 20 years.

Would the City of Kelowna who The Airport Director is an officer of the City and the Airport Advisory Committee is a standing committee of Kelowna City Council, want to move a cash cow out of its jurisdiction, lets say further north between Kelowna and Vernon, where they would have the land to build an airport with multiple runways (with some expropriation).

Maybe they do see a possibility to add another runway somewhere at the existing site, and with bigger aircrafts comes longer runways, but I have not heard or seen this in any discussions. The current administration is welcoming all and any airlines who want to locate in YLW.

And if they do move the airport in the future, the City of Kelowna should stand to reap big rewards on the sale of land considering by then the city will have expanded to that area.
Hey, that's just my take but then again, other than paying the $15 per person Airport Improvement Fee, I am not a Kelowna citizen so I have no real say in this matter.

[GordonH]

Thing is does Kelowna airport have enough room for a parallel runway, I suspect there is a set minimum distance needed between the runways.

[Glacier]

Prince George has parallel runways. They have runways with 2 side by side. The downside is the airport improvement fees are sky high (no pun intended).

[GordonH]

Prince George has parallel runways. They have runways with 2 side by side. The downside is the airport improvement fees are sky high (no pun intended).

Just looked PG airport, does not look parallel.

[RVThereYet]

Prince George has parallel runways. They have runways with 2 side by side. The downside is the airport improvement fees are sky high (no pun intended).

Just looked PG airport, does not look parallel.

Nope, not parallel, but looks like 2 runways, the long one (main) running north-south and a much shorter one running east-west.
https://www.google.ca/maps/place/Prince ... 22.6739883

[Glacier]

Oops, sorry, I was spreading #fakenews. I though it was PG, but it turns out it was Whitehorse. No room for another direction, so it had to go parallel...

https://goo.gl/maps/fBiYrk3btQw

[Dizzy1]

As much as everyone is in agreement that a second runway is not necessary, around four years ago, after a overnight snowfall, an early morning Westjet flight slid off the end of the runway closing down the runway till late that day.
They needed to remove the aircraft which required jacking it up from the mud and move to a taxiway before flight arrivals and departures could resume. At least that is what I recollect.

So you say 80 so flights a day only use the runway, beware - when your flight that cannot come in is cancelled due to an incident like this, you may appreciate another viable runway. In this case, it ruined a connection out of Vancouver to get to Mexico on a charter flight.

So if we don't have room for another runway, let us say running parallel to the existing one (take over Anderson Road), then should we be spending so much for expansion and modernising the existing terminal when we may have to relocate it completely in 15 to 20 years.

Would the City of Kelowna who The Airport Director is an officer of the City and the Airport Advisory Committee is a standing committee of Kelowna City Council, want to move a cash cow out of its jurisdiction, lets say further north between Kelowna and Vernon, where they would have the land to build an airport with multiple runways (with some expropriation).

Maybe they do see a possibility to add another runway somewhere at the existing site, and with bigger aircrafts comes longer runways, but I have not heard or seen this in any discussions. The current administration is welcoming all and any airlines who want to locate in YLW.

And if they do move the airport in the future, the City of Kelowna should stand to reap big rewards on the sale of land considering by then the city will have expanded to that area.
Hey, that's just my take but then again, other than paying the $15 per person Airport Improvement Fee, I am not a Kelowna citizen so I have no real say in this matter.

You could count the times that YLW's runway has been closed due to an aircraft incident on one hand - the most notable being the PW 737 that overran the runway in the mid 80s. The only other one I can think of is when a Cessna crashed on the runway some 10 years ago. The WestJet incident you are thinking of involved a flight to Edmonton and the aircraft cut a corner from the apron to taxiway and got stuck in the snow - the runway was unaffected due to the incident - however the airport did shut down for a while that day due to weather conditions, not because of the stuck aircraft ...

https://globalnews.ca/news/325798/westj ... n-kelowna/

YLW will not see the traffic volume to require a parallel runway let alone envision it. To spend millions of dollars to build something to prevent a few delays every 20 years is just silly.

[Dizzy1]

Thing is does Kelowna airport have enough room for a parallel runway, I suspect there is a set minimum distance needed between the runways.

Realistically, no YLW does not have room for a parallel runway. You have a highway on one side and houses on the other side, never mind the hills. SFO has about 700' between their parallel runways and thats really the limit you could safely separate runways. Aside from that, there is the issue of terrain and limitations of an ILS approach on the second runway - it took years for YLW to get an ILS approach in the first place due to the terrain, a second one might be impossible. However, in theory, you could probably put a much smaller (length and width, no ILS) runway in such as in Whitehorse, as per Glacier's example and use it for general aviation VFR aircraft, but honestly, it would bring no noticeable benefit to anyone and that money would be much better spent towards passenger infrastructure.

The other problem with a second runway is now you have to purchase, run and maintain twice as many pieces of equipment for snow removal and runway maintenance.

[7600736]

As much as everyone is in agreement that a second runway is not necessary, around four years ago, after a overnight snowfall, an early morning Westjet flight slid off the end of the runway closing down the runway till late that day.
They needed to remove the aircraft which required jacking it up from the mud and move to a taxiway before flight arrivals and departures could resume. At least that is what I recollect.

So you say 80 so flights a day only use the runway, beware - when your flight that cannot come in is cancelled due to an incident like this, you may appreciate another viable runway. In this case, it ruined a connection out of Vancouver to get to Mexico on a charter flight.

So if we don't have room for another runway, let us say running parallel to the existing one (take over Anderson Road), then should we be spending so much for expansion and modernising the existing terminal when we may have to relocate it completely in 15 to 20 years.

Would the City of Kelowna who The Airport Director is an officer of the City and the Airport Advisory Committee is a standing committee of Kelowna City Council, want to move a cash cow out of its jurisdiction, lets say further north between Kelowna and Vernon, where they would have the land to build an airport with multiple runways (with some expropriation).

Maybe they do see a possibility to add another runway somewhere at the existing site, and with bigger aircrafts comes longer runways, but I have not heard or seen this in any discussions. The current administration is welcoming all and any airlines who want to locate in YLW.

And if they do move the airport in the future, the City of Kelowna should stand to reap big rewards on the sale of land considering by then the city will have expanded to that area.
Hey, that's just my take but then again, other than paying the $15 per person Airport Improvement Fee, I am not a Kelowna citizen so I have no real say in this matter.

You could count the times that YLW's runway has been closed due to an aircraft incident on one hand - the most notable being the PW 737 that overran the runway in the mid 80s. The only other one I can think of is when a Cessna crashed on the runway some 10 years ago. The WestJet incident you are thinking of involved a flight to Edmonton and the aircraft cut a corner from the apron to taxiway and got stuck in the snow - the runway was unaffected due to the incident - however the airport did shut down for a while that day due to weather conditions, not because of the stuck aircraft ...

https://globalnews.ca/news/325798/westj ... n-kelowna/

YLW will not see the traffic volume to require a parallel runway let alone envision it. To spend millions of dollars to build something to prevent a few delays every 20 years is just silly.

That PWA 737 that went off the end of 34 in summer 1986 was due to the crew neglecting to set the autobrakes, I believe. The runway was very wet and quite short at the time (5300 feet). When the captain realized the error he stood on the foot brakes and they aquaplaned right off the end. I remember the spoilers and reversers would pop immediately upon touch down on 737's back in those days.

[Glacier]

Realistically, no YLW does not have room for a parallel runway. You have a highway on one side and houses on the other side, never mind the hills. SFO has about 700' between their parallel runways and thats really the limit you could safely separate runways. Aside from that, there is the issue of terrain and limitations of an ILS approach on the second runway - it took years for YLW to get an ILS approach in the first place due to the terrain, a second one might be impossible. However, in theory, you could probably put a much smaller (length and width, no ILS) runway in such as in Whitehorse, as per Glacier's example and use it for general aviation VFR aircraft, but honestly, it would bring no noticeable benefit to anyone and that money would be much better spent towards passenger infrastructure.

The other problem with a second runway is now you have to purchase, run and maintain twice as many pieces of equipment for snow removal and runway maintenance.

A friend of mine has been in the Yukon for almost 10 years, and he says that there's so much federal government money thrown around up there it's unbelievable (it's a territory, so they get a lot more money than a province does). Everyone works for the government looking for another make-work project to justify their job. They have more money than they know what to do with, so they can afford to build a second parallel almost 10,000 foot long runway just for the hell of it. We have to be a lot more cautious with our money down south.