A local resident is sounding the alarm over changes to Air Canada’s flight schedule in Castlegar that make it harder for travellers coming from the east to get home in a single day.
Tracey Fellowes, who live on the North Shore, said she has often flown to Toronto and back via the West Kootenay Regional Airport. Her return flight last May arrived in Vancouver from Toronto at just after 8 a.m. and her flight to Castlegar departed at 9:45 a.m. However, schedule revisions have since made that connection much tighter.
Air Canada’s website shows a daily flight from Toronto that arrives in Vancouver at 9 a.m. The daily departure to Castlegar is at 9:15. Starting on May 1, the morning Toronto-to-Vancouver flight will arrive at 8:19 a.m., but the Vancouver-to-Castlegar departure will also be earlier, at 8:50 a.m.
Fellowes believes many people will be forced to spend an extra night in Vancouver as a result. She said she has previously been able to fly out on a Thursday and return the following Tuesday, but that won’t be practical anymore. “So you’re going to waste 24 hours and a hotel stay waiting to get back,” she said. “That doesn’t make sense, so you wouldn’t do that trip now.”
Fellowes said for some people the alternative will be flying via Cranbrook or Kelowna, but for a brief trip it’s not much better because of the added driving time. Getting to Vancouver via Pacific Coastal in Trail is also an option, she said, but you have to book a separate ticket to go east, as Pacific Coastal operates exclusively within BC.
Fellowes said she normally flies via Air Canada because of the travel points she has collected, but won’t be using the airline as a result of the scheduling change. She said she has raised the issue with mayor Maria McFaddin and plans to bring it up with MP Rob Morrison as well.
Air Canada didn’t specifically address why it has changed its Castlegar arrival time, but in an email to Vista Radio the company said: “We adjust our schedule times periodically for a range of reasons, including aircraft availability and operational constraints.”
They added that the revised schedule may not be fixed in stone.
“For Castlegar, we are still reviewing the schedule to consider further timing changes as we do want to ensure optimal times for all stakeholders,” the email said.
Before the pandemic, Castlegar had two daily flights to and from Vancouver and one to and from Calgary. That has since been reduced to a single daily flight to and from Vancouver.
Fellowes said if the City of Castlegar, which owns the airport, is successful in implementing a GPS-based landing system to improve reliability, she hopes other airlines will be interested in serving Castlegar and provide more flight options.
She added more is at stake than her personal inconvenience.
“My concern is we’re kind of going to circle the drain as one flight a day is expensive and the schedules don’t work. So fewer and fewer people are going to take it.”
City council recently approved spending $25,000 to look at other funding models amid lower passenger numbers in the years since COVID. At the same time, they approved borrowing up to $5 million to expand the airport terminal, expecting more flights once the GPS system is in place.
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