The city of Williams Lake is reassuring airline passengers looking to get to Williams Lake, the airport is open and able to receive flights.
The city had been contacted by airline passengers trying to fly home into the Williams Lake Regional Airport with Pacific Coastal Airlines who had been told the weather and airport conditions were forcing flight cancellations.
However, Gary Muraca chief administrative officer for the city said this was not the case, as other flights came in and airport conditions were reportedly fine.
“We did our friction testing and our runway was in great condition,” said Muraca, noting two private jets and a Central Mountain Air flight landed over the last few days, when flights from Pacific Coastal were cancelled.
He said the message being communicated to passengers was the airport itself was not prepared.
“That’s not fair or reasonable to our operations staff at the city of Williams Lake because that’s not factual,” said Maruca.
With Pacific Coastal Airlines only managing a few flights into Williams Lake over the past three to four days, Muraca said, he thought maybe frontline staff for Pacific Coastal may not be getting all of the information.
Muraca defended the work of airport staff, noting the weather and conditions had been fairly good at the airport in Williams Lake.
Pacific Coastal’s morning flight from Vancouver on Monday, Dec. 11 was still scheduled for departure, though it was delayed by 25 minutes, with a scheduled return flight to Vancouver to follow, which showed a 20 minute delay as of press time.
A request for more information from Pacific Coastal from ronaldomanosa had not yet been returned. The story will be updated if a response is provided.
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