Kelowna International Airport

Kelowna International Airport
IATA: YLW ICAO: CYLW WMO: 71203
Summary
Airport type	Public
Owner	Transport Canada[1]
Operator	City of Kelowna
Serves	Kelowna, British Columbia
Time zone	PST (UTC−08:00)
• Summer (DST)	PDT (UTC−07:00)
Elevation AMSL	1,420 ft / 433 m
Coordinates	49°57′26″N 119°22′41″W / 49.95722°N 119.37806°W / 49.95722; -119.37806
Website	ylw.kelowna.ca
Map
CYLW Location in British Columbia Show map of British Columbia CYLW CYLW (Canada) Show map of Canada
Runways
Direction Length Surface ft m 16/34 9,039 2,755 Asphalt
Statistics (2023)
Total Passengers 2,032,624
Sources: Canada Flight Supplement[2] Environment Canada[3] Movements from Statistics Canada[4] Passenger statistics from City of Kelowna[5]

Kelowna International Airport (IATA: YLW, ICAO: CYLW) is a Canadian airport located approximately 10 minutes or 6.2 nautical miles (11.5 km; 7.1 mi) northeast of Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada, on Highway 97.

The single runway airport operates scheduled air service to Vancouver, Victoria, Prince George, Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto, Seattle, as well as less frequent seasonal service to Montreal, Cancún, Puerto Vallarta, Los Cabos, and Phoenix. Currently, the airport handles up to 36 commercial departures a day, or approximately 248 departures per week. Three major airlines serve the airport: Air Canada, Alaska Airlines, and WestJet.

The service to Montreal is under Air Canada for the winter-portion of the year, and under Air Canada Rouge for the summer-portion of the year.

In 2018, YLW overtook Victoria International Airport to become Canada's 10th busiest airport by passenger traffic with 2,080,372, representing a 9.9% increase over 2017.^[5]

In 1946, a plebiscite was held which authorized the city of Kelowna to purchase the 320-acre Dickson Ranch for $20,000.^[6] The airport was opened in 1947 with a 3,000 foot long grass airstrip and a small terminal.^[6] Commercial service first began in 1958 by Canadian Pacific Airlines to Vancouver.^[6] In 1960, the runway was paved and extended to 5,350 feet.^[6] Through the 1960s and 1970s the airport continued to be expanded with a new terminal building, an air traffic control tower, and an onsite weather office.^[6] From the late 1960s to the mid 1980s, Pacific Western Airlines was the primary passenger air carrier serving the airport with Boeing 737-200 jetliners on nonstop and direct flights between Kelowna and Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver and other small cities in British Columbia with the airline also operating Convair 640 and de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter turboprops as well as Douglas DC-3 and Piper Navajo prop aircraft on regional flights.^[7][8] By 1985, Pacific Western had become an all-jet airline and was operating up to sixteen departures a day with the Boeing 737-200 from Kelowna including direct, no change of plane service to Toronto.^[9] Throughout the 1980s and 1990s commercial and cargo traffic increased, necessitating more than $10 million of investment in upgrades to the terminal building, runway and airline operating facilities.^[6]

In 1996, Greyhound Air was flying daily nonstop service to its hub in Winnipeg with direct one stop service to Hamilton, Ontario, with Boeing 727-200 jetliners operated by local company Kelowna Flightcraft Air Charter (now KF Cargo).^[10] Also in 1996, WestJet was operating nonstop Boeing 737-200 jet service to Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver and Victoria, British Columbia, as well as direct one stop 737 service to Regina.^[11]

In 1998, a $20 million expansion program doubled the size of the terminal building, increased parking, and expanded airside facilities to accommodate the projected 1 million passengers by 2011.^[6] By 1999, five airlines were serving Kelowna: Air BC with code sharing flights on behalf of Air Canada, Central Mountain Air with code sharing flights also on behalf of Air Canada, Canadian Regional Airlines with code sharing flights including Fokker F28 Fellowship jet service on behalf of Canadian Airlines, Horizon Air with code sharing flights on behalf of Alaska Airlines, and WestJet with the latter air carrier continuing to operate Boeing 737-200 jets on all of its flights at this time.^[12]

The main terminal building is a full-service facility covering approximately 76,000 sq ft (7,100 m²). There are 10 aircraft loading positions, half of which are fitted with jet bridges. The arrivals area contains three baggage carousels, one of which can be cordoned off to accommodate international/US arrivals (and remaining two for domestic arrivals) and Canadian Customs processing. (The airport has a CATSA pre-board screening area, but not US pre-boarding clearance zone.)

The departure lounge features a wired business centre and complimentary wireless Internet. The airport's focal point is a glass rotunda which contains a fountain and the cylindrical glass sculpture "Escape from Stella Polaris" and Skyway Atrium Lounge. Kelowna Art Gallery operates a satellite site at the airport. A small observation area is located on the mezzanine level.

Key destinations from the airport are the Pacific Northwest (United States and Canada), Western Canada, Northern Canada, and Eastern Canada, as well as seasonal connections to the Southwestern United States and Mexico

North American passenger destinations map

Kelowna Toronto-Pearson Vancouver Montréal-Trudeau Calgary Whitehorse Nanaimo Edmonton Victoria Prince George Seattle-Tacoma Cancún Phoenix-Sky Harbor San José del Cabo Puerto Vallarta Saskatoon Regina Winnipeg Las Vegas Comox Los Angeles Mazatlán class=notpageimage| Destinations from Kelowna International Airport Red = Year-round destination Green = Seasonal destination Blue= Future destination charter / private flights not included*

Graphs are unavailable due to technical issues. There is more info on Phabricator and on MediaWiki.org.

Annual passenger traffic at YLW airport. See Wikidata query.

Annual passenger traffic^[22]

Year	Passengers	% Change
2010	1,391,807
2011	1,390,187	0.1%
2012	1,443,997	3.8%
2013	1,504,694	4.2%
2014	1,602,899	6.5%
2015	1,593,606	0.5%
2016	1,732,113	8.7%
2017	1,893,470	9.3%
2018	2,080,372	9.9%
2019	2,032,144	2.3%
2020	737,447	63.7%
2021	829,804	12.5%
2022	1,718,059	107.0%
2023	2,032,624	18.3%

Cars, buses and taxis can connect to the airport for Kelowna via Highway 97. The airport has an outdoor parking lot next to the terminal and some short term spaces near the terminal building.

The airport is serviced by Kelowna Regional Route 23 and Vernon Regional Route 90 (rush hour service only) buses, which connect Vernon and Lake Country with UBC Okanagan Exchange in Kelowna. The airport is not served by the bus on evenings and weekends.^[23] Passengers heading to downtown Kelowna or West Kelowna can transfer to 97X Kelowna RapidBus at UBC Okanagan Exchange.

In 2006, the Kelowna International Airport Advisory Committee created the Master Plan 2025, a document dedicated to the expansion of the Kelowna International Airport. The Plan is expected to cost approximately $150 million. Due to YLW's unprecedented growth, a Master Plan was required to aid in keeping the airport at modern traffic handling standards. By 2008, the airport lengthened the single runway to 8,900 ft (2,700 m), and plans to lengthen to 10,000 ft (3,000 m) by 2025. Also, the passenger terminal has been expanded so as to allow hourly processing of 680 passengers in 2015, and will be further expanded as to allow 900 passengers by 2025. Currently, the hourly rate is approximately 400 passengers. In order to do this, the terminal size will be nearly doubled, and a 2,400 space parkade will be constructed. Also, to reduce vehicular traffic congestion, a diamond overpass/underpass interchange will be constructed at the current intersection of Highway 97 and Airport Way.^[24] A hotel is now being built on site next to the terminal.

• October 13, 2016: Former Alberta premier Jim Prentice was among the four people killed in a small-plane crash in British Columbia that took off from Kelowna Airport. Prentice, 60, was aboard a twin-engine Cessna Citation that disappeared from radar shortly after takeoff from Kelowna, en route to the Springbank Airport, just outside Calgary.^[25]
• August 18th 2023: The airspace surrounding Kelowna International Airport had been closed to allow aerial fire-fighting activity for the wildfires in the Kelowna area.^[26]

• List of airports in the Okanagan

• Kelowna International Airport Page from the City of Kelowna website
• Master Plan 2025
• Travel By Air page from the Tourism Kelowna website
• Page about this airport on COPA's Places to Fly airport directory
• Past three hours METARs, SPECI and current TAFs for Kelowna International Airport from Nav Canada as available.