Smooth sailing at YVR on airport’s busiest travel day of the year

What a difference a year makes.

This time last year, the Vancouver International Airport was awash with holiday travel chaos, as a snowstorm helped kick off a cascade of delays and cancellations that left some passengers trapped on the airfield for hours and others sleeping on the airport floor.

It was a different situation Friday, where despite being the facility’s busiest travel day of the year, traffic was flowing smoothly, with passengers reporting little in the way of trouble.

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“This is the quietest we’ve seen,” said Vince Madden, who was connecting to his final flight on a voyage between Australia and Kamloops.

“The rest of the airports have just been absolute mayhem.”

A break on the part of Mother Nature was one part of the equation, with temperatures in the Lower Mainland hovering at about 8 C and no sign of snow.

But YVR president and CEO Tamara Vrooman said the airport had also made numerous changes based on a review of last year’s holiday mayhem.

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“We’ve implemented a 130-point plan, $40 million, everything from new technology and equipment on the airfield to new processes with our airlines in terms of how they move and handle aircraft and baggage, to better communications and digital tools … to more staff in the terminals,” she told Global News.

Vrooman said Wednesday through Friday are its busiest days of the year, coming in a month where the airport expects to move more than two million passengers, 250,000 more than last year.

While the facility appeared to be problem-free on Friday, Vrooman said officials still want people to plan ahead to help ensure they get through as quickly as possible.

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Passengers should arrive three hours early for an international flight, and two hours early for a domestic flight, she said.

They should also avoid wrapping any presents they’re travelling with.

“People think that saves time, but actually it might not, because if we ever have to unwrap those gifts at security of course it takes extra time to do that, and then you just have to re-wrap them again anyway,” Vrooman said.

She said people can also speed up their trip through the airport by pre-booking their parking and pre-booking a timeslot to go through airport security.