Vancouver International Airport (YVR) is amid its busiest two weeks of the year, prompting calls from airport officials for the public to allow extra time for their flights and to prepare for what could be long waits in line-ups.
July was the busiest month in the airport’s 85-year history, with more than 2.24 million passengers. That is up 9.8%, compared with the same month last year, YVR’s director of customer care, Reg Krake, told Business in Vancouver August 25.
June traffic was up 9.1% to almost 2 million passengers.
The airport had its busiest-ever year in 2015 when 20,315,978 passengers either got on or off planes at the facility. It was the first year that the airport had cracked the 20-million passenger threshold.
Airport officials this year are predicting that the airport will surpass the 21-million passenger mark this year thanks to a busier second half of the year.
The exact date that is the busiest in the year is hard to predict in advance, Krake said.
“We can expect to see up to 85,000 passengers on our busiest day,” he said. “It's hard to pinpoint the busiest day because everything fluctuates each day but the last two weeks of August is our busiest period. Fridays tend to be the busiest so that is quite possible [that August 26 will be the busiest day of the year.]”
About 23,000 people work at YVR but Krake would not estimate how many people will be working tomorrow. He said that extra staff will be on duty.
To show how passenger traffic fluctuates at YVR, the least busy month is November, which saw 1.43 million passengers last year. That was 695,109 passengers, or 32.7%, fewer than last August.
In addition to arriving at least 90 minutes before domestic flights and two hours before international flights, Krake advised passengers to print boarding passes at home, book parking in advance online and to separate gels and liquids in luggage so it will be quicker to go through security.
