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Renovations to increase Sault airport capacity

Travellers flying out of Sault Ste. Marie Airport will soon be waiting to board in style, following renovations to its passenger holding area.
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Renovations at the Sault Ste. Marie Airport scheduled for this spring will add capacity to its passenger holding room and an additional ticket counter, which will make room for future airlines.

Travellers flying out of Sault Ste. Marie Airport will soon be waiting to board in style, following renovations to its passenger holding area.

Scheduled for this spring, the renovations — facilitated by $1 million in funding from the province — will expand the holding room’s seating area, which is currently at capacity, and add amenities like more washrooms and food service counters, said Terry Bos, CEO of the airport corporation’s board.

“People sitting there waiting for their flight are going to be able to get food other than vending machine food while they wait for their flight, because sometimes they hold you in there for an hour the way the flights are called,” Bos said.

The additions should add 30 per cent more capacity to the area, he added.

The airport is additionally adding another ticket counter to its check-in area, since it, too, is nearly at capacity. SunWing offers flights out of the Sault to Dominican Republic between December and March, but has resorted to using temporary counters to serve customers, Bos said.

“We’re going to add in another counter space and office so that if another airline comes along, we have the space ready,” he said. “If not, then SunWing can use it as a permanent office in the wintertime as opposed to the temporary desks that we have rolled out there.”

Speculation has circulated for some time that the airport would seek out a fifth air carrier — conjecture has pointed to WestJet as the most likely option — to add to the services already provided by Air Canada, Bearskin, Porter and SunWing.

But Bos said that idea remains just that for now. “Nothing’s imminent there,” he said.

A request for proposals has been issued for an engineer to design the new passenger holding space, and the airport was aiming to have someone selected and in place by the end of March, with the start of construction to coincide with the arrival of warmer weather.

“We’re hoping that they can have the design done by sometime in May and we can start construction in June so that we’re done by October before the snow flies,” Bos said. “That would be a very tight timeline, but we’re really going to hope for it.”

The renovations were a goal outlined in the airport’s Business and Land Use Master Plan, which was completed last June by consultant Aviotec. The plan outlines development priorities at the airport for the next five to 10 years, and includes continuing to grow passenger numbers, which continue to flourish.

According to the most recent numbers, as of the end of February, the airport processed 197,396 passengers over the previous 12-month period. During the last two months, in particular, the airport set new records, Bos said.

“We’re really hoping to hit 200,000 sometime during this calendar year,” Bos said. “That’s our goal right now; we’re getting there.”

It could happen sooner than anticipated after Porter announced, in March, an additional three destinations to its schedule as part of its previously announced agreement with JetBlue.

Travellers flying out of the Sault can now book flights to Long Beach, Calif.; Nantucket, Mass.; and Portland, Ore. Porter gets them as far as Toronto, where they transfer to their JetBlue flight to get them to their final destination.

Amongst the 27 destinations covered by the agreement are Orlando, Las Vegas, Tampa, Los Angeles, Fort Myers, Phoenix, Fort Lauderdale, and Puerto Rico.

Next on the airport’s list of priorities is revamping the parking lot to make it faster and easier for travellers to get in and out, and some aesthetic improvements to the outside of the facility, Bos said.

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