North Battleford airport is continuing their runway improvement project for the third year.
As part of the Community Airport Partnership program, the Government of Saskatchewan has given the project $275,000. Airport Supervisor Fran de Kock says the funding is part of a four year improvement project on the runway.
“At this point we’ve done the center 80 feet and now we’re starting to do the sides so that we’ll have a total of 150 feet completed after next year.”
Phase three of the project is expected to be completed by September, 2018. De Kock says so far the project has spent over $1 million from both the City of North Battleford and the province.
“What happens is the provincial government puts in so much money and then the City matches that amount of money, so we’re spending between $550,000 and $600,00 this year.”
The airport is mainly used for corporate traffic and de Kock says the runway needed to be updated to continue its use for corporate companies.
“It was to the point where a couple of the companies operating jets were reluctant to come in because of the asphalt deterioration. Now that the center 80 feet is completed they’re coming back in again and they’re very happy that we’ve done that.”
De Kock says the airport is a very important part of the community so various improvement projects will be ongoing.
“We’re looking at improved signage in the next three years and in 2017 we updated our fuel dispensing system. Probably within five years we’re gonna be required to update our runway lighting system.”
The runway project is expected to be complete by September, 2019.