Hey guys, welcome back to the channel.
Vancouver International Airport, or YVR, is Canada's second largest airport, and Canada's
main Asian Pacific Gateway. Given the massive economic growth seen in Asia and China in
particular in recent decades, Vancouver international has grown faster than any other airport in
Canada, so much so that the airport carries nearly three times more passengers than it
did in the 1990s. And that growth is accelerating, the airport only broke the 20 million passenger
a year mark in 2015 and is already nearing 30 million yearly passengers.
So what does Vancouver International Airport look like today, and how will the airport
expand and change as it looks ahead to meet ever growing passenger numbers?
Let’s find out.
Vancouver International Airport is located on Sea Island, South of the City of Vancouver
and West of the suburbs of Surrey and Richmond. The island location presents space and sea
level constraints, but does allow for the creation of a nice economic zone on adjacent
lands, all with a focus on serving the airport.
YVR has won Skytrax's best North American airport award for the past ten years, and
it has also been featured on a number of top ten world airports lists.
YVR currently has 1 large main terminal building, with multiple concourses, or piers, separated
into two main areas: international and domestic, from which the respective markets are served.
The airport also has a small terminal at the south end of Sea Island that uniquely serves
seaplanes, and there’s a south terminal that serves some regional flights although
in decreasing frequency.
The current airport parking is uniquely minimal in the North American context, with only three
main lots and one small parkade. The parkade and short term parking are available adjacent
to the main terminal, while the JetSet parking lot is located east of the international terminal.
Long term parking has recently been relocated from the surface lot next to the parkade to
farther out by the Canada Line’s Templeton Station. Thus, those using the larger new
long term parking lots use either a shuttle bus or the Canada Line to access the terminal
buildings.
Shopping is also one of YVRs strong suits, with a large number of in terminal stores
and services, as well as a large number of duty free retailers. Moreover, as a unique
feature for a Canadian airport, YVR also has a high end outlet shopping center run by European
chain McArthur Glen on the East side of Sea Island, North of the long term parking lot
and east of the Northern runway. The outlets are easily accessible via the Skytrain which
is free while on airport grounds. These shops are a popular place to shop for Vancouverites,
and they also provide an excellent destination for connecting passengers with long layovers.
Besides shopping, tourists and especially passengers with layovers need a place to stay,
and that’s where the Fairmont Vancouver Airport hotel comes in. It’s built right
into the terminal, and it’s said to be the nicest airport hotel in Canada - convenience
is certainly a factor in that.
Of course, important to any airport is its ground access. YVR is served by three major
bridges which connect Granville St and Marine Drive in Vancouver, as well as Bridgeport
Way and No. 2 Road in Richmond to the airport lands. The Sea Island road network also connects
the McArthur Glen outlets, the Passenger Terminals and Parking as well as a whole host of other
businesses operating on Sea Island.
Now this next point is no surprise to frequent visitors to our channel, but our favorite
way to get to YVR is the Canada Line. The Canada Line is an Automated Metro and the
third line in Vancouver’s SkyTrain network. The Canada Line links Vancouver international
with Downtown Vancouver in 25 minutes, and Downtown Richmond in about 12 minutes. Additionally,
many bus connections can be made at the Bridgeport Hub, which links the Line’s branches just
to the east of Sea Island.
In a positive move, YVR funded the construction of the Canada Line onto Airport lands, and
hence there is a small additional charge when using the system between the Airport and destinations
beyond Sea Island. And as mentioned before, the Skytrain is free to use on Sea Island
and this means Vancouver easily has North America's most overbuilt airport people mover,
or the most underbuilt metro.
Unlike Toronto Pearson and Montreal Trudeau airports though, YVR has limited day time
public transit bus service, and this is certainly one area we'd like to see improvement. Nonetheless,
Vancouver was the first city in Canada to implement an airport rail link, and remains
the only city in Canada to have electrified rail access to its airport. The investment
is paying off with over 25% of people travelling to YVR opting to use the Canada Line.
YVR currently features three runways, the North, South, and Crosswind runways. The North
and South runways are both long enough to serve virtually all commercial aircraft, and
the Crosswind runway is used primarily for Crosswind operations with smaller aircraft.
The runways are linked with an extensive taxiway system, allowing planes to taxi from the passenger
terminals to travel to their takeoff runway, as well as return to the terminals after landing.
Alright, now, let’s talk about the future expansions that YVR is getting. YVR’s significant
growth has necessitated significant airport expansions, and we'll discuss the plans now.
The YVR 2037 Masterplan was created in 2017, and it lays out all the expansions that the
airport will undertake for the next twenty years in order to better serve its customers
and community.
For the terminal buildings, we will see expansions or extensions of all existing piers. Domestic
Piers Pier A. Pier B. Pier C. And International Piers Pier D. Pier E. And Pier F, are all getting expansions,
with the expansion of Pier D already under construction.
The ability to grow capacity significantly without
adding new terminals is a testament to the smart planning that was done at the early
stages of YVRs current development.
The International Terminal building will also see passenger and baggage processing capacity
increases, as well as an Eastward extension of check in areas and security checkpoints
along with the Pier F extension.
With the Pier F expansion, extended aprons will require displacing the existing JetSet
parking surface lot, but fortunately existing capacity is already being rapidly expanded,
with both the new long term lot and a significantly larger parkade that will take up the entire
area of the current parkade and short term surface lots adjacent to the terminal. All
of the new parking areas will have significant Electric Vehicle charging facilities in keeping
with YVRs sustainable practices. The parkade will also have geothermal wells integrated
into its structure, which will provide heating and cooling to the airport through a new utilities
and service building being built adjacent to the new parkade.
While we agree that tons of parking is definitely a negative, even with expansion Vancouver
international will have far less parking capacity than Toronto Pearson and most major US airports.
We also see additional parking as a necessary evil to improve the passenger experience and
capacity of YVR, which in turn will make one of the world's most environmentally sensitive
and sustainable airports even more competitive in the North American market. This is something
that we think more than offsets the negative impacts of more parking.
Shopping areas will also be expanded, with new retail opening within the terminals as
they get further expanded. In addition, the McArthur Glen outlets are also finishing up
their phase 2 expansion. The airport has also set aside land on the South East of the island
for future retail use.
In terms of public transit improvements, we’ve actually mentioned this before in our Future
of Rapid Transit in Vancouver video, but YVR is getting yet another SkyTrain station, right
where the newly expanded international terminal would be. The two SkyTrain stations combined
will serve the airport well, and would hopefully facilitate much more use of the system over cars.
Perhaps the most impressive growth set out in YVRs current plans is the significant expansion
of runways and taxiways across the airport.
A new long runway is planned to be built into the straits of Georgia called the foreshore
runway. This would allow for significantly more simultaneous takeoffs and landings of
the large widebody jets that YVR is known for. A new shorter Southern runway would remove
most regional planes from the three long runways, and allow regional services flying out of
the South Terminal to utilize the runway at all times, while freeing up capacity on the
main runways for larger planes.
Interestingly, in a
first for YVR, a new North South Taxiway is being proposed to the east of the main terminal.
This would take aircraft over the access roadways and Canada Line directly to the south runway
from the international terminal. Given that the Southern runway is usually used for takeoffs,
this would significantly reduce taxiing time and reduce emissions, as well as improving
airside traffic. The North South Taxiway would be elevated over the Canada Line, and has
been on the horizon for a long time, which is in part why the Canada Line operates at
ground level for most of its length, in order to allow for a future taxiway overhead.
Alright, so that concludes our video on Vancouver International Airport and its impressive expansion plans.
As our future home airport, we hope to have shared some insights on these plans, and we really
enjoyed making this video.
If you enjoyed watching this video, make sure to like and subscribe, and leave a comment
down below to tell us what you are most excited for in the future of YVR. Follow us on Twitter
and Instagram, and support us on Patreon if you would like to help us keep making great
videos for you guys. Thanks for watching, and we’ll see you in the next one!
[Music]