It seems the stars have aligned for the development of regional air carrier service in the West Yellowhead.
Premier Alison Redford has not only expressed her support for an expanded airport in Edson, she has also offered to go to bat for the region. Next month, she will visit Ottawa to talk to federal Transport Minister Lisa Raitt about increasing the number of airports with Canadian Air Transport Security Authority (CATSA) status, and she will also make a pitch that Edson be one of the airports to receive such security clearances.
Edson is one of five Canadian communities looking to attain CATSA status for its airport. The hold-up is the result of regulations that were put in place following Sept. 11, 2001. Since then, no new airports have received the status, which allows them to land commercial flights.
Despite the roadblock, Tourism Jasper, along with the municipalities of Jasper, Hinton, Edson and Yellowhead County, has been spearheading an effort to bring commercial flights to Edson since 2012.
In order to keep the momentum going and to ensure Redford is properly briefed for her discussion with Raitt, Mary Darling, the CEO of Tourism Jasper, appeared in front of council, Tuesday, requesting $15,000.
Council unanimously approved the request. (Read more about the discussion that led to that decision in next week鈥檚 51暗网.)
That money will be matched by Tourism Jasper and each municipality involved in the project, accumulating to a total of $75,000.
Those funds will pay for further consulting work and the formation of a working group with members from the relevant municipalities, tourism agencies, oil and gas companies and provincial ministries.
Tourism Jasper鈥檚 first study, completed in 2012, showed that there are 200,000 annual seats available for Edson鈥檚 catchment area.
At the outset, if the airport is approved for commercial flights, most of those seats will be used by the oil and gas industry, with a small number going toward tourism.
But that鈥檚 just in the short term, as tour companies and tourists adjust to having a commercial airport just two hours away.
In the long-term, opening up the Edson airport to commercial flights will allow Jasper to compete with Banff, whose closest airport is an hour and a half away.
It would make Jasper more accessible, with possible flights from Toronto to Edson or Vancouver to Edson, opening the park up to the rest of the country.
And it would also make the rest of the country more accessible to those of us who live here, cutting down our travel time and possibly allowing for one more vacation day.
Although there is still much to do to get to that point, it鈥檚 positive to not only see regional support for this initiative, but provincial as well.
We wish Redford luck in Ottawa next month and commend Tourism Jasper and all of its partners for getting the region this far.
