° Not observed 
6
Though Pacific Coastal made the best of a bad situation in Trail during the Olympic air security lock-down, capacity dropped by 15 per cent in February.
“It was a bit of a blip for us, the whole Olympic operation . . . it was a hard slap to us as a company,” said spokesman Spencer Smith on Friday.
The airline returned to flying out of the Trail Airport this month, after planes took off from Castlegar’s airport during the period of Jan. 30 to March 3.
In light of new security requirements presented by the Integrated Security Unit, which regulated security during the Olympics, the Vancouver airport was closed to unsecured flights for five weeks — before, during and after the Winter Games.
As a result, Pacific Coastal had to either shut down operations from its rural airports that don’t have security in place or opt to go through security checks elsewhere.
To operate out of Castlegar, Pacific Coastal introduced a new service for its Trail passengers – a shuttle bus operated by the airline left the Trail Airport 75 minutes before each flight.
In addition to costs in operating the shuttle, the airline had to pay for more staff as well as a fee for renting Castlegar’s airspace. These figures, along with the overall financial impacts, have yet to be determined.
“Cost issue aside, everything went very well,” said Smith. “The operation went quite smoothly. The people at the Castlegar airport were very accommodating.”
To stimulate some traffic during the predicted slow period, the company offered seat sales. While this may have enticed Greater Trail travellers to fly during an otherwise inconvenient time, overall there was little gained.
“At the end of the day, the revenue didn’t cover operation costs,” said Smith, adding that the company did not reduce the number of flights from Trail because it expected some interest from Castlegar travellers, too.
The company expected a significant Olympic-related decline in business across its entire system, which involves scheduled air service between Vancouver and 14 B.C. communities, as well as charter flights.
Overall, Pacific Coastal faced a 12 per cent reduction in traffic for the month of February.
“It wasn’t positive for us but hopefully in the future when Olympic Games are held in Canada, a resolution (on unsecured flights) will come to fruition,” said Smith.
