Calgary Airport's Grandiosity: White Elephant, Anyone?

Calgary City Council agreed to fund $90M of a proposed $287M required to construct a tunnel underneath a new runway to be built at Calgary International Airport.  The city said it would also go to bat for the airport authority in the pursuit of other funding from the provincial and federal governments.

According to Calgary International Airport CEO Gavin Atkinson, the planned 4270m runway would be the longest in Canada and built to accommodate the larger jets used for intercontinental travel.  He said that the goal of the airport is to attract more direct traffic from Asia and Europe.  There are already some direct flights to and from Europe, but the notion of attracting direct traffic from Asia seems grandiose, given the state of decline in the airline industry.

The airline industry is still reeling from the crunch of rising fuel costs and the lingering impact of 9-11.  It would be difficult for an airline to justify landing a direct flight from Asia in Calgary, when Vancouver, Seattle and San Francisco provide close access.  While the oil industry and the growing Asian population in Calgary might provide a customer base for flights, such services would be the first to be cut should an airline have to reduce services and expenses.  Given the amount of competition that is taking place between the international airports that have been built in South East Asia during the last 10-15 years (Bangkok, Hong Kong, Ho Chi Minh City) and the financial struggles that those airports have faced, airlines have become accustomed to cuts in landing fees and might expect the same if Calgary expects to lure direct Asian flights.

President Atkinson also indicated that the airport's $3 billion worth of expansion plans over the next ten years would largely be funded by user-fees.  The investment in the fourth runway that the Calgary Airport Authority endeavours to construction seems at best a risky venture given the incredible uncertainty in the global airline industry.  It is more likely that the runway will be an underused resource and a source of traffic bottlenecks throughout the city's entire northeastern quadrant.