It will cost you a little more to fly out of the West Kootenay Regional Airport in Castlegar starting next month.
City council has given its blessing to an increase in the fee that is tacked on to ticket fares for departing passengers and earmarked for airport improvements.
Since 2002, the fee has remained at $7 per person but as of June 4, it will be going up to $25.
Airport manager Maciej Habrych told council the fee is reinvested in infrastructure and capital projects “that help grow the airport in terms of capacity, aesthetics and making it more efficient and attractive to airlines.”
He explained that $25 is typical for similar-sized airports and the type of capital projects they are expecting to carry out in the next one to three years.
Those projects including implementing the proposed RNP approach to improve the airport’s reliability, a short-term expansion to the passenger hold room, and work on the taxiway and apron to better accommodate Q400 aircraft.
The process requires providing a business case to Air Canada, which has now signed off on the increase.
The airport was projecting 18,252 departing passengers this year. Under the old fee, they would have paid $127,764, but under the new fee that would rise by $328,536 to $456,300.
Passenger loads are expected to increase to 30,420 next year, which would generate $760,500 and to 42,588 in each of the three subsequent years, for a total of $1,064,700 per year.
Habrych said the revised fee is part of his plan to revamp the airport’s entire revenue model.
“This makes sense,” councillor Bergen Price said. “These fees are 20 years old and we’re updating them, which seems reasonable to me.”
“Finally,” said councillor Sue Heaton-Sherstobitoff.
“A couple of us around this table have been asking for the fees to be increased the last eight years, because they were so low and we always had the vision of collecting fees to do things at the airport so we’re not taxing people of Castlegar. It really is a regional airport and everyone should share in that service.”
Councillor Dan Rye agreed, noting that while it has been in the works for a while, the delay was partly attributable to COVID.
“This is going to be great to get in place because we know we need spend money at the airport and need to raise some money,” he said. “We can’t just keep going to the well all the time.”
