Passenger numbers were about the same at the Quesnel Regional Airport this year.
Airport and Transport Supervisor Tommy Grant says they were down a little but he says the back half of 2024 was positive.
“The second half of the year we started using the Dash 8 more frequently and that should continue into 2025, which offers more seats and definitely brought our ridership numbers up for the second half of the year.”
Grant says fuel sales were also down in 2024, but he says that is actually a “good” thing.
“We were just under $300,000 in jet fuel sales. Those numbers were a little bit down compared to 2023 where we were at close to 350 thousand dollars. Unfortunately out here that is usually driven by the forest fires, so if we have a down year which is good for the community because the fires are staying away, but obviously that will drastically affect our fuel sales for the summer time.”
Grant says the forestry section out at the airport expanded this past year though.
“Our forestry section out here has been growing pretty steadily over the last couple of seasons ,and last summer we were able to set up a full camp right across from their location that is permanently here. So they have been doing extensive work with clearing out a bunch of brush and trees so that they can have some shade, and have a good set up for when they do have to set up a full camp out here.”
Grant says they also used federal funding to complete a couple of projects this year.
“We did the runway project, which was ACAP (Airports Capital Assistance Program) which was federal funding, as well as we upgraded our sweeper here for the runway this year as well.”
Grant says this year they plan to use some provincial funding, BCAAP (B.C. Air Access Program), to enhance the holding room area to make it more functional and up to date.
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