SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Changes are on the way to the Yellowknife Airport, but travellers need not fear.

A tender for the design of pre-board screening area improvements at the Yellowknife Airport closes September 1. - NNSL file photo

Renovations to the pre-board screening area are expected to improve efficiency rather than cause construction headaches.

"That facility is seriously overgrown," said Yellowknife Airport manager Lee Stroman of the security area where passengers have their carry-on baggage screened before boarding their flights.

"We don't have the ability to put through as many passengers as we need to during peak hours."

Stroman said the physical screening space will be made longer to allow more people to line up and put their bags in bins when going through security.

Screening equipment will also be upgraded.

According to Stroman, the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority (CATSA) has been rolling out a new pre-board screening

system called CATSA Plus that's been used in the Montreal and Calgary airports.

"We're going to end up with a tailored version," he said.

"That's going to allow multiple people to go through at the same time."

A tender for the design of the pre-board screening area and construction administration services closes Sept. 1. The estimated budget is $660,000, according to the document.

The goal of the changes, according to the tender, is "to increase the current estimated processing time of 100 passengers per hour to 160 passengers per hour."

"Most of the work will be done at night and we will have to maintain everything in a phased-in approach so it doesn't interfere with operations," added Stroman. "Every effort will be made to ensure we maintain at least the same level of service that we currently have through the construction period."

Construction is expected to begin sometime after February 2018 and be completed by July 2018.

The upgrades follow new airport improvement fees that came into effect July 1. Those fees include an extra $20 for passengers flying south from Yellowknife and an extra $10 on flights headed North of the city, as well as a $7 to $9 increase in aeronautical fees.

MLAs passed a bill in March allowing for the fee increases, revenue from which goes into a revolving fund up to $36 million for the airport.

Infrastructure Minister Wally Schumann has stated the funds will go directly back into the airport and are meant to free up $4 million the GNWT uses to subsidize the airport annually.

Not everyone has shown support for the new fees, though.

Last fall, NWT Tourism executive director Cathie Bolstad expressed concern that additional fees on flights would be bad news for the tourism industry and would do little to entice airlines to add direct flights to Yellowknife.

MLAs worried the fees would affect Northerners' cost of living, while officials with the NWT & Nunavut Chamber of Mines argued they would increase the cost of mining in the territory.

But the Yellowknife Chamber of Commerce is in full support of the new fees and the airport upgrades that are in the works.

"We really want to see airport investment," said Deneen Everett, executive director of the chamber. "It's such an important piece of infrastructure."

In addition to the screening area renovations, Stroman said the airport will be getting check-in kiosks to decrease unnecessary bottlenecks at check-in counters.

De-icing equipment is also on the way, as well as upgrades to the parking lot layout and some paving and maintenance work around the airport.

"We're excited to see that changes are happening quickly," Everett said. "We believe that this type of infrastructure investment will help Yellowknife not only in tourism ... but also for transporting people and goods."

Trevor Wever, president of the NWT Chamber of Commerce, said airport renovations such as those coming to the pre-board screening area are "critical."

"The airport is seen as a growth engine or an economic driver for the territory," he said. "If you can maintain your infrastructure ... that's always one of the key building blocks of economic growth."

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