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Kuujjuaq airport to see improvement by 2006?

Proposal one step closer to official approval

ODILE NELSON

To the relief of many travellers touching down at Kuujjuaq’s busy airport, Transport Canada and the Kativik Regional Government are a step closer to signing an agreement for a new terminal building.

Michael Gordon, Kuujjuaq’s mayor and an executive member of the Kativik Regional Government, said this was the impression he was left with after a Dec. 10 meeting between the federal government and the KRG.

The two organizations had previously met in the spring of 2002 when Transport Canada presented the KRG with six proposals for improvements to the airport and terminal.

Kuujjuaq has been asking for improvements for at least 10 years, Gordon said, because the building becomes overcrowded at peak times.

Last month, Transport Canada came back with essentially one option, Gordon said, and the KRG gave its approval to the proposal.

"It’s in the hands of Transport Canada now. They’re going to have to bring it up with their bosses and come up with the funding for this project. That’s the immediate thing," he said.

The latest proposal consists of two different projects — an airport development plan that includes the airport grounds and a terminal improvement project.

According to the proposal, the new terminal would be two and a half times the size of the current building with room for a small restaurant, extra seating and counter space for more airline booths.

The project would also add 45 new parking spaces, extend the access road to the airport by 100 metres and expand the apron by 16,000 square metres.

Gordon said these improvements would mean a lot to pilots, local passengers and visitors alike.

"When you’re at the airport — every lunch time — there’s First Air coming in from the south — this is even in the winter time — First Air’s arriving at the same time people come in from up the coast, from Ungava, and it creates unneeded friction between passengers. People can’t get to the conveyor belt to collect their luggage. In the summer time it’s a real nuisance when we get two planes a day from the south and hunters up here to hunt or fish. So in that sense it will help passengers," Gordon said.

But Daniel Bleau, Transport Canada’s regional manager of airports for Quebec, stressed the development plan is not official. He said the federal government and KRG must still give it their final approval and only then will the government seek out funding for the project.

Both Gordon and Bleau said they hope this approval will come sometime this spring.

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