Business View Magazine | November 2019

148 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 2019 apron and provide an overlay on our main runway.” Regarding competition from other facilities, Gibson says that Prince George has been able to take most of the commercial business within three-and-a- half hours driving radius of the Airport. “Our major benefit is our weather reliability,” he states. “We had a 98.2 percent weather reliability in 2017. While we are a winter city, we have an excellent snow management plan and snow clearing operations. We have the ILS system; we have the very long runway with LED, high-intensity lighting. We have a NAV Canada-controlled airspace, fuel services including Jet A and Avgas, customs clearance ability, and contractors to supply aircraft services, such as two full-service FBOs. And we’re on a plateau, so we don’t have the same mountainous topography that some of the other regional airports do. We’re also the largest city in northern BC, so we’re its distribution center.” Perhaps most importantly, Prince George International Airport is a business-friendly airport that actively seeks new businesses through outreach and marketing. An international cargo program is on the Airport’s to-do list, as it recently attained Foreign Trade Zone designation. The Prince George Global Logistics Park, which is getting ready to go online, just next door, is also a Foreign Trade Zone designee, which makes the two facilities very attractive to companies doing international business. “The land has been cleared