YYF getting bigger planes

Photo: Bombardier

Air travel in and out of Penticton should be getting more reliable with an announcement Thursday that Air Canada is deploying new, larger, aircraft on its Penticton-Vancouver route.

Starting this spring, the state-of-the-art Bombardier Q-400 will be servicing the route. The 74-seat aircraft is an upgrade from the currently used 50-seat Dash 8-300. The change increases the total daily seats across the three daily flights on the route by 17 per cent.

"Air Canada is strategically enhancing the flying experience and increasing capacity this summer on key regional routes in Western Canada.  The ultra-quiet, comfortable, fuel efficient and faster Q-400 aircraft will be well-received by our customers and is larger than the regional aircraft it is replacing,” said Mark Galardo, vice president, network planning at Air Canada.”

The new aircraft also have more modern avionics equipment that allows for much more reliable operations in fog and “low ceiling” conditions that have traditionally hampered flights in and out of the Peach City during the winter months.

Air Canada is deploying the new aircraft on 10 other Western Canada routes, including Vancouver to Kamloops and Calgary to Kelowna.