Airport project running on schedule

Everything looks good for the new airport terminal here to be completed by Jan. 23 as scheduled, Operations and Facilities superintendent Bruce Spottiswood noted yesterday.
Work crews presently are finishing up the drywalling and painting inside the terminal, he said, noting the former was delayed slightly by the installation of the automatic doors, which went in Dec. 22.
“It’s gone fairly smoothly,” Spottiswood noted, adding the mild fall turned out to be a big help in getting the outer brick work done.
“It probably would have taken a week to a week-and-a-half [in normal weather] because we would have had to heat it and hoard it in,” he explained.
“With the warm fall, we didn’t have to do any of that. All the brick work was done in two days,” he continued.
“It’s schedule to open on the 23rd and I don’t see why it won’t be,” he stressed.
The new terminal will be about 25 percent larger than the old one, and will have a spare office in addition to the Bearskin counter for a second airline to move into (which will be used as a pilot’s lounge for the time being).
It also will feature a new airport administrative office, three car rental booths, and an immigration office, with a separate room attached to do strip searches, Spottiswood said.
“And the usual bathrooms, mechanical rooms, storage room, and a big baggage room,” he added.
CAO Bill Naturkach the cost for the terminal project is around $650,000, which is being split 50-50 between the town and Transport Canada. He said it was a necessary expenditure.
“From an operational point of view, it was almost becoming impossible,” he remarked, noting airport workers have had to put out as many as 12 buckets to catch water leaking through the roof in the old terminal.
“The original building had outlived its proper usefulness, and deteriorated to a point where, travelling from a commercial point of view, it was a very negative factor on our area,” he stressed.
Spottiswood joked there would be “no need for buckets” at the new terminal, and any negative impressions from the old one will be erased rather quickly.
“With the new terminal like that, it should be more attractive to possibly another airline coming in,” he said. “And for sure to the private sector [planes] from both Canada and the U.S. coming in.”