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Edmonton International Airport (EIA/YEG)

David A said:
I agree, the current UCP one seems to be on a ideological crusade and perceives Edmonton to be the enemy.

Even worse, a few Premiers ago, we had the former Mayor of Calgary who never really left that job in spirit, as Premier. He mostly just neglected Edmonton and favored his city, but he wasn't above sticking it to Edmonton when he saw the chance.

It never made sense for me that to fly to Europe, I would have to fly to Calgary, change planes and then fly back over Edmonton to go Europe. But some of those in precious city would probably throw a terrible fit if they had to stop for a half hour or so here while they remain in their seats on the same plane, to let people board.

I suspect many people from Edmonton just travel to Europe through Toronto instead. It has much better connections to Europe than Calgary anyways. Also better to connect in Vancouver if you are flying to Asia.
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I actually found the Edmonton-Iceland route to be a fast, enjoyable way into Europe. Six hours to Keflavik, a brief stopover (great airport, and the country is definitely worth visiting), and then easy to get to Dublin/London/Amsterdam/Frankfurt/Barcelona and many other spots. I get going through Calgary if needed, but I think transferring in Toronto has also been a bit easier to navigate for final destinations.

Really wanted to see those Calgary to Dublin/Rome flights come to fruition, that would have been handy too.

Now from Edmonton, I would really love to see that Chicago flight come back. So critical for work/long weekend getaways to the States.
 
I took that Iceland route a couple times as well and liked it. I enjoyed Icelandair. When Iceland was the Cinderella team in the World Cup, the cabin crew was all decked out in team gear. They had some good deals, too. I flew home from Copenhagen for under $500.

Even before COVID, that route was being scaled back if I remember correctly.
 
Calgary is becoming a money pit for the provincial government - spend billions and billions on projects like new hospitals, new LRT, new cultural venues, yet the Calgary economy keeps shrinking and people are leaving in droves. Pretty soon it will become apparent that YEG's tech sector is the future of the province, and the YYC oil industry is the past.

I agree that the NDP needs to step up their game with what they will do for YEG. How they will help the city achieve its goals. UCP is already coming round in their own way and I do believe there are certain suburban ridings where UCP are competitive, and they need every seat they can get. Especially if the next election is a close one.
 
Edmonton is planning a new hospital, has LRT u/c and soon to be another line, the Winspear is u/c... just saying.

You sure about 'people are leaving in droves', for they just had quite a month real estate-wise and Calgary's tech sector is an order of magnitude larger than Edmonton's.
 
IanO said:
Edmonton is planning a new hospital, has LRT u/c and soon to be another line, the Winspear is u/c... just saying.

You sure about 'people are leaving in droves', for they just had quite a month real estate-wise and Calgary's tech sector is an order of magnitude larger than Edmonton's.
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Agreed on the tech sectors comment, and I alluded to this in another thread, Edmonton seems to claim a robust tech sector as one of the city's strength especially because of the U of A. While the tech sector is great in Edmonton, it's not even close to some other Canadian cities, including Calgary, Vancouver and the Kitchener-Waterloo area. We certainly have had a nice little share of investments in tech lately but again it's just not even close on a number of fronts. Sometimes I feel as if every other city is living in 2021 and Edmonton is still excited it created fire with two sticks.
 
IanO said:
Not to derail, but page 23.
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Thanks for sharing these. In my opinion these are not very flattering stats unless I am interpreting this incorrectly? Our tech talent ranks 11 in Canada? We have the lowest amounts of tech jobs as a % of total jobs in 2017 for the names listed? The lowest number of employees in high tech other than Winnipeg? Yes, there are some positive stats so I am not just cherry picking but my point is I would like someone to come out whether it is DBA or council or whoever and say "we want to be the go to city of choice in the province for the tech industry, here is our strategy to achieve that by 20XX", or because this is the the airport thread "YEG ranked 8th in cargo volumes in 2019, we want to be the number 1 ranked cargo airport on the prairies by 20XX, this is how we will achieve that". Otherwise throwing around a bunch of stats with no KPIs or strategies will just keep perpetuating the good enough for Edmonton hey we ranked 11th in Canadian tech talent woohoo!
 
CaptainBL said:
Thanks for sharing these. In my opinion these are not very flattering stats unless I am interpreting this incorrectly? Our tech talent ranks 11 in Canada? We have the lowest amounts of tech jobs as a % of total jobs in 2017 for the names listed? The lowest number of employees in high tech other than Winnipeg? Yes, there are some positive stats so I am not just cherry picking but my point is I would like someone to come out whether it is DBA or council or whoever and say "we want to be the go to city of choice in the province for the tech industry, here is our strategy to achieve that by 20XX", or because this is the the airport thread "YEG ranked 8th in cargo volumes in 2019, we want to be the number 1 ranked cargo airport on the prairies by 20XX, this is how we will achieve that". Otherwise throwing around a bunch of stats with no KPIs or strategies will just keep perpetuating the good enough for Edmonton hey we ranked 11th in Canadian tech talent woohoo!
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When a Calgary western Canada head office was recently announced by an international tech company in India, Nenshi had commented that it had taken four years to lobby and bring that to Calgary.
I believe Iveson has gone on some trade missions? Not sure of results.
 
CaptainBL said:
Thanks for sharing these. In my opinion these are not very flattering stats unless I am interpreting this incorrectly? Our tech talent ranks 11 in Canada? We have the lowest amounts of tech jobs as a % of total jobs in 2017 for the names listed? The lowest number of employees in high tech other than Winnipeg? Yes, there are some positive stats so I am not just cherry picking but my point is I would like someone to come out whether it is DBA or council or whoever and say "we want to be the go to city of choice in the province for the tech industry, here is our strategy to achieve that by 20XX", or because this is the the airport thread "YEG ranked 8th in cargo volumes in 2019, we want to be the number 1 ranked cargo airport on the prairies by 20XX, this is how we will achieve that". Otherwise throwing around a bunch of stats with no KPIs or strategies will just keep perpetuating the good enough for Edmonton hey we ranked 11th in Canadian tech talent woohoo!
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The gist was that we have bright spots, some infrastructure and opportunity to support it, but are generally underperforming.
 
Edmonton International Airport is the first airport in the world to sign The Climate Pledge, it announced on April 21. Signatories agree to be carbon neutral by 2040. EIA said approximately 70% of its carbon emissions are related to electricity usage.

EIA commits to carbon-neutral initiative

Edmonton International Airport (EIA) has become the first airport in the world to join The Climate Pledge and its commitment to be carbon neutral by 2040.
flyeia.com flyeia.com
 
edmontonjournal.com

Edmonton International Airport seeking urgent $15-million fund from surrounding municipalities to attract direct flights

"The airport’s a critical driver to our economy, there's no two ways about it, and something we have to strongly consider contributing to."
edmontonjournal.com edmontonjournal.com

Edmonton is being asked for $10M of the $15M plea from EIA. I'm glad money is also being asked of region - it will be interesting to see who all ponies up.
The money is to be used solely for purpose of maintaining existing direct flights and attracting new ones.
Aren't the airlines eager to have previous flights return that were profitable or sustainable?
It kind of reminds me of the $600k Iveson spent to make a lobby video to the government for LRT funding. Seemed like a waste to me. Cities have to spend money to lobby the government for transportation funding? I don't recall hearing anything about Calgary or other municipalities doing that, not that they didn't. The difference here is airlines are businesses but interesting that we will need to lobby to get our previous flights back post covid.
At least Edmonton Global is advocating for the region.

I thought EIA would be doing OK with all the development and companies operating on site over the past few years.
 
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