Pacific Coastal Airlines has announced some major changes to flight plans in the southern interior of the province, making new connections between some centres in the Kootenays and Okanagan with the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island.
But at least the time being, no new connections are planned to any flights to and from Trail Regional Airport.
Last week, Pacific Coastal announced daily inter-city flights between Cranbrook and Victoria, with a stopover in Vancouver’s South terminal to load and unload passengers, which began running Oct 2.
In addition, daily flights between Cranbrook and Kelowna will begin in mid-November, adding the Okanagan city to the growing list of locations serviced by the airline.
“We are very excited about adding Kelowna to our list of more than sixty-five destinations in british Columbia,” Spencer Smith, Pacific Coastal Airlines vice president of commercial services, said in a press release. “The addition of this new route is an important part of our strategic development plan.”
However, even though expansions and new connections may be in store for some southern interior communities, there are currently no new connections being made for the Trail flights.
“Anything is possible we have been looking at it,” said Kevin Bothroyd, media contact for Pacific Coastal Airlines. “It’s been discussed but it’s not on the books today.”
Although the number of seats purchased for the existing flights to Vancouver from Trail Municipal Airport have dropped this year, Boothroyd says that isn’t necessarily unusual given some of the industry numbers.
“We don’t have exact numbers at this time for Trail but stats were down,” Boothroyd said.
“It’s not something particular to that run though there were signs of a general malaise across the board in the travel industry this year. It looks like pretty much the same drop for other airlines in other markets as well.”