Starting March 1st Pacific Coastal Airlines will resume service between Vancouver and Anahim Lake Airport.
Since 2011 the Cariboo Regional District has been working on a runway extension vital for ensuring scheduled service is possible into the area.
Major works were required to meet new Transport Canada regulatory standards and significant grant funding was necessary to do it.
CRD Area J Director Gerald Kirby said the $300 thousand in grant funding from the Community Economic Recovery Infrastructure Program they received last year made the runway project possible.
He also said the Anahim Lake Airport is a critical piece of transportation infrastructure for the West Chilcotin.
“As we all know there’s been a lot of fires in the last while, Forestry has obviously been using the Airport along with any floods which we had a few of this out this way. As most people know the RCMP has great use for that Airport coming and going as well as Medi-Vac.”
Kirby noted the return of scheduled services helps local economic development, improves accessibility, and delivers important benefits to the region overall like the tourism industry
In a news release earlier last week, Pacific Coastal Airlines Vice President of Customer and Commercial, Johnathan Richardson said “We are excited to resume scheduled flight and cargo service to the community of Anahim Lake. We have been working closely with the Cariboo Regional District as they achieved airport improvements to have the previously announced curtailed usable runway length removed. Pacific Coastal can now resume offering sustainable flight service to the community and will do so starting on March 1, 2022.”
When scheduled flight service returns it will be two days a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays, then beginning May 1, scheduled service will operate 3 days a week on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.