7M passengers expected to travel through YVR this summer

The Vancouver International Airport (YVR) is gearing up for a busy summer travel season and said Monday that new measures and digital tools are now in place to help travellers navigate the airport more easily.

This comes after passengers experienced delays on Saturday for both international and domestic flights.

The airport said the delays were due to “constraints being experienced in the air navigation system.”

In April, the airport announced it was investing $40 million to ensure what happened during the 2022 holiday season does not happen again. The money will go towards new staff, training, more communication, better leveraging technology and investing in additional equipment to keep more aircraft moving and passengers informed.

Officials said the main factor of last year’s holiday mess was passenger and airline demand exceeding processing capacity due to winter weather conditions.

Trouble at the airport began the week before Christmas when an intense snowstorm grounded planes and resulted in a massive wave of delays and cancellations with lengthy ripple effects.

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Some passengers were left stranded on aircraft for hours, while others were stranded at the airport for days or separated from their bags for weeks.

2:24 Staff shortages at NAV Canada impacting YVR flights

The summer season is expected to be very busy with almost seven million passengers expected to travel through the airport from July through September.

Last summer the airport handled just over six million passengers.

The busiest days are anticipated to be Sundays in August, according to airport officials, with the top destinations being Toronto, Calgary, Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Delhi, London and Hong Kong.

6:07 YVR unveils ‘action plan’ after holiday travel disruptions

The airport hopes some new technologies will help travellers navigate the airport easier. This includes an online mapping platform to travel through the airport quicker. It will also provide “timely reports on YVR’s operational performance, with the latest data on baggage delivery, on-time performance and security screening wait times posted to its website,” the organization said in a release.

YVR said it has also increased staff in the terminal and across operations.

It has also resumed its Less Airport Stress Initiative (LASI), which brings ambassador dogs from St. John’s Ambulance Therapy Dog Program into the terminal to help travellers manage stress and anxiety.

Travellers are encouraged to visit YVR.ca/TravelPlanning for more tips and information to help them prepare for their next trip through YVR.