Calgary International Airport is the fourth busiest airport in Canada,
and had nearly 18 million passengers pass through in 2019.
However, if you look a bit closer, you may notice that it has four runways.
On the surface, that might seem like a lot.
For comparison’s sake, Canada’s next 3 busiest airports are Toronto-Pearson, Vancouver
International, and Montreal-Trudeau, with each having 5, 3, and just 2 runways, respectively.
Toronto-Pearson is by far and away the busiest airport in the country,
serving over 50 million passengers in 2019.
In the case of Vancouver, over 26 million passengers flew through that year,
while 20 million flew through Montreal.
So at the number 4 spot,
why does Calgary have more runways than two of Canada’s busiest airports?
Well, first things first, it’s important to note
that they can’t exactly use all four of these runways at once.
Calgary is home to the two longest runways in Canada - Runway 35L/17R,
and runway 35R/17L. These are 12,675 feet and 14,000 feet long, respectively.
The other two runways are runway 08/26 at 6200 feet, and runway 11/29 at 8000 feet. However,
both of these intersect with 35L/17R, and so they can’t really be used all at once.
That’s not to say that they haven’t though,
and this crossing runway operation was very common before 35R/17L was built.
Ultimately though, these three runways are a bit like having one and half runways,
since the approach paths for 29 and 26 also intersect. That’s also not to mention that
given Calgary’s elevation, 26 can be a bit on the shorter side for certain aircraft types.
As you can see, the number of runways isn’t really a suitable metric for judging how busy
an airport might be. So why do these two shorter runways exist in Calgary?
Well, Calgary’s location in Alberta, situated 60 kilometres or so east of the Rocky Mountains,
makes it quite susceptible to mountain weather - specifically,
Chinooks, which mostly occur between September and April.
Very briefly, Chinook winds take place when moist air from the Pacific Ocean
is forced upwards across the mountains from west to east.
This air then cools as it rises until it becomes saturated and then loses
moisture to precipitation on these western slopes.
As the air travels down the eastern slopes of the Rockies, it becomes warmer and drier than it
originally was, bringing Calgarians and Southern Albertans a temporary reprieve from winter,
but also these very strong westerly winds.
By the time they reach Calgary, these winds have an average speed of 20-30 knots, or 40-55
kilometres an hour, which can make takeoffs and landings tricky on the parallel runways.
Obviously, airplanes need to take off and land into the general direction of the wind,
and when these westerly winds get too strong for certain aircraft to use the parallel runways,
then you’ll start to see operations on 29 and 26.
Now, admittedly, runway 26 has seen more use as a parking lot in the past year and a half
since runway 29 could handle its limited amount of traffic without much difficulty.
That’s not to say that 26 hasn’t ever seen any traffic. If anything,
it’s almost in a better position than 29, since these winds usually come straight from the west,
as opposed to the northwesterly direction that 29 is positioned in.
From time to time during crosswind operations, you could see a couple
of charter and private operators landing on 26, up to the size of Canadian North 737s!
Even so, according to the Calgary Airport Authority, runway 26 in 2019
only had 64 departures and 191 arrivals in the entire year.
That is a miniscule amount of operations when compared to the over 200,000 aircraft movements
that year overall. Even runway 29 still had around 1700 departures and 2500 arrivals that whole year.
Because of Calgary’s largely northerly, southerly, and westerly prevailing winds,
the opposite ends of these crosswind runways are very rarely used.
According to the airport authority, in 2019 Runway 08 was used for a grand total of 0
arrivals and departures, and runway 11 was used for 2 arrivals in that entire year.
That said, runway 11 did see some action in summer 2021 due to some runway closures.
Despite these unflattering statistics,
26 and 29 still play a very important role operationally during these high-wind scenarios.
While there can be a 20-30 degree crosswind on 29 that the vast majority of aircraft can handle,
for some lighter aircraft types, 26 may be the best option.
Larger aircraft typically have higher crosswind limitations,
but smaller regional aircraft, of which Calgary has many, normally have lower
crosswind limits. Exceeding those limits is normally considered to be an unwise move.
Because of the consistency and frequency at which these strong westerly winds come through,
having this crosswind runway system pays off for both the airport and the airlines that serve it.
If flights were cancelled every time a Chinook rolled through,
well let’s just say people would not be very happy or flying much!
So the next time you fly through Calgary during a Chinook,
there’s a good chance it’ll be a bit bumpy,
but you will be flying through in the first place thanks to one of Calgary’s crosswind runways.
Thank you so much for watching this video, and I’ll see you next time!