Calgary International Airport serves the city of Calgary, Alberta, and is the fourth busiest
airport in Canada by passenger traffic.
The airport itself has four different runways.
They are 17R/35L, 11/29, 08/26, and 17L/35R.
17L/35R, the east parallel runway, is the newest one at
the airport, and opened to traffic in 2014 as part of a major expansion project.
The runway itself is 200 feet wide, and features a Category III(A) Instrument Landing System
for arrivals in reduced visibility.
It also has the distinction of being the longest runway in all of Canada, at 14,000 feet.
For an outside observer, that seems like an absurd amount of runway, especially for all
the short and medium-haul traffic the airport gets.
So, why does Calgary have a runway that’s over 4 kilometres long?
Well first of all, and most importantly, Calgary Airport has an elevation of 3,606 feet, or
just over a kilometre above sea level.
For those familiar with aviation in general, this admittedly sounds like something straight
out of Private Pilot ground school.
Essentially though, with increasing elevation and less dense air, comes decreased aircraft
performance and longer takeoff and landing rolls.
Despite the ever-present cold winters that seem to take up most of the year here, the
summers tend to be quite warm, and temperatures can reach over 30 degrees Celsius.
Higher air temperatures also result in lower air density, and further decreased performance.
The combination of this with the higher elevation leads to much more runway being needed.
Although Calgary’s elevation isn’t quite as extreme as, say, Denver, or Mexico City,
it’s something the airport authority had to take into consideration when designing
the new runway.
Smaller aircraft like the Dash 8s don’t quite need all of that distance.
However, for the larger aircraft that Calgary gets, like 747 freighters, and for transatlantic
and transpacific flights, the more runway and the more payload that can be carried,
the better!
That distance also allows virtually any aircraft to use the airport with fewer payload restrictions,
like the occasional Antonov 124!
So with that all being said, where is Canada’s second longest runway?
Well, it’s actually about two kilometres to the west.
17R/35L, Calgary's west parallel runway, has a length of 12,675 feet, or just shy of 4 kilometres,
for exactly the same reasons.
Until 17L/35R was built, it too held the title of Canada’s longest runway.
Previously though, RCAF Station Namao, now CFB Edmonton, had a 13,780 foot runway that’s
no longer in use.
But, that’s a story for another time.
The world’s largest aircraft, the Antonov 225 actually visited Calgary in 2012 using
the older airport infrastructure.
So, in planning Calgary’s new runway, while the length is very relevant, it wasn’t necessarily
the only reason for building it.
Prior to the fourth runway, the existing three were utilized to pretty much their maximum
during peak times on certain days, with a complex intersecting runway operation.
According to an airfield and airspace study done in 2009:
With the new runway, the maximum number of aircraft movements at Calgary Airport went
from 64 movements an hour to 88.
The parallel operation is clearly much more efficient than the old intersecting one, and
much easier for air traffic controllers, too!
17L/35R has proven to be invaluable for the airport since its opening in 2014, managing
the increasing levels of traffic while keeping delays minimal up until its peak before 2020.
As traffic recovers in the future, Calgary International Airport should be well positioned
to handle it.
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