Some Saskatoon neighbourhoods seeing more air traffic with airport renovations

Some people in Saskatoon may have noticed an increase in air traffic flying above their neighbourhoods.

The Saskatoon airport is currently renovating its main runway. In the meantime, its secondary runway is now in use 100 per cent of the time, and it runs north-south. Before renovations, the secondary runway was only used about 10 to 15 per cent of the time.

“All the neighbourhoods directly to the south of us have certainly seen an impact in aircraft movement so neighbourhoods like Caswell Hill or even as far south as Buena Vista,” said CJ Dushinski, the vice-president of business development and service quality for the Saskatoon airport.

Emails were sent out alerting the affected neighbourhoods of the change, as well as those subscribed to the airport’s email list, which is about 50,000 people. Dushinski noted that since the north side of the city is mostly commercial, the increase in air traffic was less noticeable there.

Dushinski said the general public had more questions about the project than anticipated, which is part of the reason why the emails were sent out.

“There’s some questions around why this is happening,” said Dushinski. “One of the things we did realize is that we’re noticed even further afield than we even originally thought.”
Dushinski said although people were curious, there weren’t any major complaints once it was announced that the renovations were being made out of necessity due to the age of the runway and its safety concerns.

The runway renovations have a $14-million budget forecasted. After about 20 to 25 years, most airport runways need to be resurfaced. Both the primary and secondary runways were due for upgrades, according to the airport’s master plan published in October 2017.

In 2018, the secondary runway was resurfaced but the pandemic pushed back renovations for the primary runway until this summer.

“We’re scheduled to complete the project on time at the end of September,” said Dushinski. “This project started in May and it’s expected to take the whole summer to complete but so far we’re on the right schedule.”

The resurfacing is set to finish on Sept. 30, at which time the secondary runway will revert to not being in frequent use.

Although no flights have had to be moved or pushed back, Dushinski said there have been some complications with the secondary runway in relation to weather conditions.

“We’ve had rain on our secondary runway that has caused some carriers to be unable to land with certain aircraft,” said Dushinski. “It has caused some minor disruptions here and there, but overall we’re pretty happy.”