YVR best airport in Canada?

[OhMyDarlin]

https://www.castanet.net/news/BC/417062 ... ca-Skytrax

Huh? Not by a long shot. I don't think YVR is even the best airport in Vancouver. What a dump. Compared to Edmonton or Calgary, YVR is like someplace back in the 1950's.

Then you read the article and find out that it's not about the airport at all... it's about the Hotel. So why say that the airport is the best in Canada (and second best in the North America by the way) when you're not even talking about the airport?

The best thing about YVR is the cab system and the Skytrain that can whisk you away quickly, so you can spend the least amount of time there as possible.

[Saviour]

Huh? Not by a long shot. I don't think YVR is even the best airport in Vancouver. What a dump. Compared to Edmonton or Calgary, YVR is like someplace back in the 1950's.

What makes YYC or YEG better?

YEG is not too bad at least post-security, if you don't mind extremely long walks from one end of the terminal to the other. Pre security, the airport is beyond outdated with very few amenities. The new international concourse at YYC is somewhat decent, but the domestic piers are cluttered and beyond congested. Pre-security, it's an absolute maze with very few areas freely interconnecting with each other without having to go back out to the ticketing area to get from one point to the other.

YVR is far superior in all these aspects.

Arriving at either YEG or YEC from an international flight is just depressing, your whisked away into a bland, white walled Government institution like customs area versus YVR with a completely open concept filled with water and wood works.

Then you read the article and find out that it's not about the airport at all... it's about the Hotel. So why say that the airport is the best in Canada (and second best in the North America by the way) when you're not even talking about the airport?

You need to re-read the article, it clearly says that there are two categories - one for the airport itself and the other for the hotel. The first half of the article specifically discusses the airport ranking where as the second half of the article specifically discusses the hotel ranking.

The best thing about YVR is the cab system and the Skytrain that can whisk you away quickly, so you can spend the least amount of time there as possible.

Ah, but that's the thing - easy public transportation access is an important factor in such rankings - and an LRT is something YEG or YYC don't have.

[CanuckFan]

The train system out of YVR is very nice. It's fast and easy and gets you to town in no time. I've gone down a couple of times, just for the day, and although I hate the rush, I do appreciate how easy the train is.

[the truth]

The train system out of YVR is very nice. It's fast and easy and gets you to town in no time. I've gone down a couple of times, just for the day, and although I hate the rush, I do appreciate how easy the train is.

Same here ,agree 100%

[Glacier]

YVR was poorly designed such that when it snows it creates massive delays and all around chaos. There's no solution other than tear down the entire thing and start over. That would be 100s of millions of dollars (probably more like billions), so won't happen.

So they will complain and do nothing until the next big event happens and complain again about how it's unacceptable. And then do nothing of any significance again.

There are not enough taxiways to get aircraft from their gate to de-icing and eventually the runway. When they get into a situation where every single aircraft is deicing, those taxiways begin to get plugged up with aircraft queuing for de-icing. When those same aircraft are finished deicing, they have to get them through those very taxiways that are already plugged up. When aircraft land, they have to get them to the gate on those same taxiways.

Secondly, there simply are not enough gates and the aprons are very small. Other than the international horseshoe, they can't allow multiple pushbacks from the gate because there simply is not enough room. And when the aircraft does not push back and an arrival lands, but needs that same gate, what do you do? You have to maneuver it around the airport on already congested taxiways and stash it, hoping the gate opens up.

They can't just bring it onto the apron because then you block aircraft from pushing back from the gate. Those two items are mostly to blame for the largest delays at YVR during winter operations. The Seattle Airport has a smaller footprint but is better laid out so they don't have any delays from snow clearing.

[Saviour]

YVR was poorly designed such that when it snows it creates massive delays and all around chaos. There's no solution other than tear down the entire thing and start over. That would be 100s of millions of dollars (probably more like billions), so won't happen.

So they will complain and do nothing until the next big event happens and complain again about how it's unacceptable. And then do nothing of any significance again.

There are not enough taxiways to get aircraft from their gate to de-icing and eventually the runway. When they get into a situation where every single aircraft is deicing, those taxiways begin to get plugged up with aircraft queuing for de-icing. When those same aircraft are finished deicing, they have to get them through those very taxiways that are already plugged up. When aircraft land, they have to get them to the gate on those same taxiways.

Secondly, there simply are not enough gates and the aprons are very small. Other than the international horseshoe, they can't allow multiple pushbacks from the gate because there simply is not enough room. And when the aircraft does not push back and an arrival lands, but needs that same gate, what do you do? You have to maneuver it around the airport on already congested taxiways and stash it, hoping the gate opens up.

They can't just bring it onto the apron because then you block aircraft from pushing back from the gate. Those two items are mostly to blame for the largest delays at YVR during winter operations. The Seattle Airport has a smaller footprint but is better laid out so they don't have any delays from snow clearing.

SeaTac cancelled hundreds of flights this year as well and completely shut down just as YVR did.

The taxiway pattern at YVR isn't an issue, what was one of the issues is that it takes "X" amount of time to de-ice an aircraft and while those aircraft were being de-iced, other departing aircraft held at the gates which prohibited incoming flights from accessing those gates creating congestion on some taxiways used for inbound flights but that did not prohibit the movement of any outbound flights. The other issue, at least with the first snow storm was that 08L/26R had to be shut down because the crew of an inbound EVA B777 cut the corner too close vacating the runway and all inbound flights had to use 08R/26L.

YVR has had zero issues in the past with that kind of congestion so that would indicate that the amount of snow that fell in a timeframe was the actual problem, not the airports layout.

As far as de-cing capabilities goes, SeaTac faired no better this year in fact, Alaska Airlines had a complete shutdown because they couldn't keep up.

Winter operations at YVR is an exception, not a rule and is budgeted accordingly. All airports across the world end up getting shutdown for a few days a year due to snow or weather regardless of how big their snow operations budget is - it happens. If this situation happened frequently during normal day to day operation, your points would be valid, but the fact is that this only happens a literal handful of days a year when a significant amount of snow drops in a short time frame demonstrates that the airport isn't a problem in itself.

Another issue is that many workers could not get to work at the airport in the first place, no workers means jobs can't get done and that just escalates the situation which is why YVR put up essential workers in nearby hotels during the last snow event so they had a much better chance of actually being able to get to work.

[Glacier]

Everyone gets shut downs, but Vancouver gets more congestion when there's been heavy snow. They don't get a lot of snow, so it can be lived with, but it's worse than Seattle.

[Saviour]

Everyone gets shut downs, but Vancouver gets more congestion when there's been heavy snow. They don't get a lot of snow, so it can be lived with, but it's worse than Seattle.

Again, the congestion was caused by outbound aircraft holding at the gates prohibiting inbound flights from accessing the gates which was further complicated by a disabled aircraft shutting down the northeast half of the apron - severe congestion like that is a complete one off. Congestion by having a line of aircraft to be de-iced waiting in the queue for half an hour or even an hour happens at all airports whether its YVR, YYC, YEG, YYZ, ORD, JFK, EWR or any where else and it happens more frequently at those airports than it does at YVR. Now, having a disabled aircraft like that, creates a problem because you have to divert your snow clearing equipment to that specific area of the airport to try and get it out and that creates a problem for the rest of the airport - so again, one off factors.

SeaTac also had passengers stuck on planes for hours during the same snow storm and had passengers stuck at the airport for days.

The inbound flights were lined up on taxiways Echo and Hotel (as the they had to use 08R/26L due to the disabled EVA B777 off of 08L/26R) while the outbound flights were using taxiway Lima, so there was no congestion other than the handful of inbound flights waiting to access occupied gates and the longer than usual de-icing times because the snowfall was incredibly heavy at the time.

[CanuckFan]

YVR barely ever got snow until recently. I doubt they designed it, whenever it was, to accommodate huge snow loads.

[Glacier]

A YVR traffic controller told me that the airport was not designed for good snow dumps. The layout could have been better. If laid out like SeaTac there would be shorter delays. But yes, snow is rare there. Of course, this was only the 6th time since 1937 that Vancouver had snow in November, December, January, February, and March, so ya, just like the Okanagan, Vancouver had a much snowier winter than normal.