Recent History – 2000-2002
Oct. 12, 2000
DAWSON CREEK — The responses of local business people to a survey may be the key to establishing a direct flight between airports in Dawson Creek and Vancouver.
About a quarter of the 250 questionnaires sent out by the Dawson Creek and District Chamber of Commerce have been returned.
“All indications are is that there is an interest,” said Chamber manager Wayne Dahlen. “There are six or seven who have indicated that they would be more interested if there was same-day service into Edmonton or Calgary, but the majority are showing an interest in going to Vancouver.”
Dawson Creek Municipal Airport Manager Ian Darling said the survey will be one of the ways he hopes to attract such a service to the Mile Zero City.
“I want to be able to have that on the shelf so that if somebody comes to me, I can say here, this is what people think,” he said.
Darling said he’s talking to a few companies about providing such a service, but was not naming names. “I don’t want to scare anyone off, right now,” he said.
Darling envisages a nine-seat executive-style jet picking up passengers early in the morning and bringing them back later that evening.
Currently, Central Mountain Air provides three flights a day out of Dawson Creek, but they all land at Prince George first. The delay combined with the early return time does not give business people much time if they can only spend a day in Vancouver.
“I mean now they have to leave at 9 a.m., they’re not getting into Vancouver until 11:20, 12, and then they got to get back to the plane for 4:20 so you’ve got to be back by 3:20, so you can’t have a very good meeting in that length of time,” Darling said.
“Then everybody’s working out of your schedule in Vancouver and that’s not right either.
“And a lot of people want to go out and do some leg work before they go in and have meetings, and maybe have one or two meetings and they can’t do that.”
A direct flight would take slightly less than two hours, Darling said.