Central Mountain Air has announced that all scheduled flights out of Williams Lake and Quesnel will be suspended due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Byron Johnson, Manager of the City of Quesnel, says the last flight will be on Thursday, April 9th and the temporary suspension is expected to last for a couple of months.
Johnson says the City will still maintain the Quesnel Airport in an open condition…
“And the reason for that is there are private flights coming in and out, there’s corporate flights, but on a more important basis the Air Ambulance still uses that facility and as the summer progresses, from a wildfire control perspective, it’s very important that the wildfire service as well as the helicopters can use that airport as a center if they need it.”
Johnson says there won’t be much of an impact from a staffing perspective for the city…
“We’re on very minimal manning right now because it’s spring time and we’re not doing heavy snow maintenance or that type of work, so we’re already on a pretty tight crew without much manning up there. We do need to maintain operations up there, there is a lot of safety procedures that are required just because it’s a certified airport, so our business and the work that we do up there won’t change that much.”
Johnson says there will be a bit of a financial hit to city, although he says at this point they don’t know exactly how much…
“That’s a really hard one to predict. A couple of things hurt us, less traffic means the landing fees go down, the passenger fees go down and we don’t sell as much fuel right so there are definitely some impacts, but we’re just going through those numbers right now.”
Asked if the city may qualify for funding to help offset some of the lost revenue, Johnson says it is a possibility although he says at this point senior levels of government are focused on helping individuals and businesses.