Vancouver’s airport prepares for another winter storm

Another pile of snow and round of frigid temperatures are about to hit Vancouver International Airport (YVR).

YVR President and CEO Tamara Vrooman says the airport is functioning reasonably well for now, noting a few adjustments made to help the airport recover and respond to this oncoming storm, compared to earlier this week.

“We are spending all of our time readying ourselves for the severe weather that we understand is in the forecast this evening and into tomorrow,” Vrooman said Thursday afternoon.

The airport readying themselves includes bringing in specific policy changes to avoid having passengers spend time waiting on tarmacs upon arrival.

“We have been able to adjust our gating policies certainly the holds that we had on aircraft which means people remaining onboard an aircraft unable to get off which were very, very long. Earlier this week. Unacceptable. We’ve changed and made adjustments in collaboration with our airline partners to make sure that doesn’t happen and we’ve had zero of those yesterday,” said Vrooman.

These policy changes come after a plane full of passengers arriving from Montreal had to sit in suspense on the tarmac for nearly six hours while they awaited de-icing work. That incident took place earlier in the week.

Related articles:

• Compensation may be limited for snow-affected YVR passengers: Advocate

• WestJet flights impacted by extreme weather across western Canada

According to Vrooman, roughly 100 out of 660 flights were cancelled as of Thursday afternoon, and the vast majority of flights had been departing on time. Later Thursday evening, major airline WestJet announced all scheduled flights in and out of YVR between 11:50 p.m. Pacific time Thursday and late Friday afternoon are cancelled.

Toronto’s airport is experiencing similar issues, with Pearson seeing all WestJet flights after 9:00 a.m. Eastern time grounded until at least the end of the day. Several other airports throughout B.C. and Ontario are being hit with WestJet cancellations.

YVR and the other weather-affected airports will continue to weather the storm as snowfall and freezing rain continue to dominate the forecast as the calendar year draws to a close.