YVR announces improvements in response to December travel chaos

The Vancouver International Airport (YVR) has introduced a 25-point improvement plan to address the chaos that saw 180,000 passengers affected by disruptions during the past Christmas travel season.

YVR president and CEO Tamara Vrooman said the airport is investing $40 million in systems to better co-ordinate weather forecasting, aircraft and baggage tracking, along with improved training for workers and more staff on the terminal floor to answer passenger questions.

"I'm confident that these actions will improve the efficiency of our airport," she said.

Heavy snowfall brought traffic at YVR to almost a complete halt on Dec. 20, affecting one-third of all flights. Passengers were stuck in planes on the tarmac for hours with all gates full, while others had to spend days sleeping in the terminal awaiting news of when their flight would leave.

The knock-on impacts of stranded passengers and massive baggage backlogs lasted for weeks.

Week of winter storms brings Vancouver airport to a near standstill

2 years ago

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Most flights were cancelled in Vancouver in the lead-up to Christmas Eve, with some passengers stuck in limbo for several days.

Vrooman said one of the biggest changes is new technology that will allow YVR and partners to view real-time aircraft locations in order to address problems arising from three different systems currently in place one that tracks the planes at gates, another that tracks them as they taxi on the tarmacand a third for take-off and navigation.

She said YVR is pledging to get passengers deplaned within 30 minutes of landing.

"What the review shows is that we didn't have a single, co-ordinated way to know exactly where the aircraft were, which ones were pushing off the gate, what happened where they were delayed, where the ground handling crew was, and so on ...This provides a seamless picture, connectivity, of where an aircraft and ground handling and towing equipment is for all aircraft on the ground, regardless of where they are in the aircraft journey," she said.

Technology is also coming to provide a single weather forecast for all players in the YVR ecosystem instead of each using the agency of their choosing. Vrooman said planning from a single-sourced forecast was especially important with the increased severity and frequency of weather events like last December's snowfall.

Additionally, YVR will be implementing its own baggage scanning system to augment ones already in use by airlines.

"We'll know exactly where your bag is," she said.

Vrooman said the costs of the improvement will be absorbed by YVR and will not be passed on to travellers.

The review considered feedback from 1,500 members of the public and over 60 agencies and companies connected to YVR.