The COVID-19 pandemic has not only delayed the plan to build a new terminal building at the Thompson Airport but it’s made it more expensive, construction superintendent Curtis Ross told the Thompson Chamber of Commerce at a virtual meeting Feb. 16.
Ross, who was formerly CEO of the Thompson Regional Airport Authority (TRAA), which has overseen airport operations since 2000, said the original budget for the revamped airport was about $70 million, $28 million of which is coming from federal government funding announced in 2019.
The total budget for the same work now, due to rising labour costs, inflation and supply chain problems, is nearing $105 million, meaning that the share the TRAA has to come up with has grown from $15 or 20 million to $30 or $40 million, which isn’t an amount it can come up with on its own.
“Our cash flow is limited,” said Ross and two-thirds of the $15 million or so the TRAA has the ability to borrow when airport passenger volumes are at historic normal levels was used up to pay for a new water treatment plant, which is operational, though there are some issues with freezing of the line that supplies the north side of the airport. Until funding to cover that shortfall has been identified, the federal money pledged in 2019 wont be released.
Once the money is in place, Ross said, it will take four or five years to finish all of the construction for the new airport, with the terminal itself likely to take three years.
Although the new terminal and other improvements are currently in a holding pattern, the good news is that the airport managed to average about 50 per cent of its normal passenger volume during the pandemic, so getting back to 2019 levels should be possible once COVID-19 restrictions are fully lifted and life becomes more normal. The airport has also seen the amount of freight that passes through it grow by 102 per cent since 2017.
“We’re seeing the exponentially increase,” Ross said.
As a result, the terminal building has undergone a bit of a redesign, as one airline wants to have a freight terminal attached to the building, which would have to go where the previous design had planned for administrative offices, as a result of ground conditions.
“We now have the preliminary drawings for a freight facility attached to the new building,” Ross told chamber members.
Asked if there was potential once the new terminal and infrastructure are constructed to attract new airlines to Thompson, Ross said that depends on passenger and freight volumes.
“If the market is there, they will be there,” he said, noting that TRAA tries to keep its fees reasonable to make flying in and out of Thompson economically viable, though that has little impact on the cost of airfares.
“Our fees only make up two per cent of the overall ticket,” he said. “That’s at the highest.”
Ross also said that he hoped once the expansion is complete that the airport will be more accommodating to non-commercial traffic such as people coming to Northern Manitoba ton hunting and fishing trips who want to fly their own planes.
