Lethbridge Airport. (Lethbridge News Now)

By David Opinko

Lethbridge Airport traffic down 79% in 2020 but hope is on the horizon

Jan 12, 2021 | 11:20 AM

LETHBRIDGE, AB – Travel restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic have meant that airports across the world are hurting, the Lethbridge Airport included, but its manager still remains optimistic.

In 2020, the local airport saw a total of 22,078 passengers. That compares to 104,078 the year prior.

“It’s had a significant impact to the operating budget to the airport – a negative impact,” says Airport Manager Lawrence Canning. “We’re down because a lot of our revenue comes from passenger fees, terminal fees, and so on, so if there’s no passengers moving and nobody here parking their cars and no aircrafts parking here, then we lose revenue.”

The good news is that, since the airport runs a small amount of staff anyway, they did not have to lay anyone off in 2020. They did, however, only hire one temporary worker for the holiday season instead of their normal two.

Part of why Canning is optimistic for the future is the renovation and upgrade projects that will soon be underway.

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Last February, the City of Lethbridge approved funding for renovations to the airport, which are expected to commence in the next few weeks and wrap up before the end of 2021.

“There’s going to be an extension to the hold room, a glass facade facing airside – it’ll be quite nice, and basically a complete upgrade of our infrastructure for the building, the electrical, the plumbing, and so on.”

This work also entails the replacement of the facility’s H-VAC system, a project that the city says is long overdue.

There will also be millions of dollars of work to upgrade the lighting and pavement on the airside.

Canning believes these projects are not only important right now, but continually as the city grows in the years ahead.

“We’re kind of in a unique position right now that we have all of these projects. It’ll be less of an inconvenience to the travelling public because they’re not travelling much because there’ll be a lot of work happening here over the next 12-16 months.”

COVID-19 vaccines are currently being dolled out across the country. Canning hopes that it will be successful and will result in travel restrictions being lifted sooner rather than later.

“I think that people will be cautious, I think it’ll probably take a year or two for people to get comfortable with coming out and getting in a plane and flying wherever. I think some people would love to travel right away – like, I’d love to – but not everybody has the same comfort level as me.”

Although Canning was not able to elaborate at this time, he says other initiatives are being developed that will both improve passenger experiences and growth the airport even further.