Safety is the number one priority at Kelowna International Airport.
YLW participated in Canadian Airport Safety Week, which ended Friday with a “Foreign Object Damage” march on the tarmac, where staff cleared foreign objects and debris that could cause damage a plane.
“Here at Kelowna International Airport, we do a runway check every six hours, even though it’s mandatory that it can take up to 12 hours anywhere in Canada,” explained Philip Elchitz, Senior Manager airport operations at Kelowna International Airport.
“We do it every six hours because it’s very important. We don’t want a little bit of anything to really affect an aircraft’s operations.
“We know that these types of interactions between these parts and the aircraft are not the best, and that’s why safety is the number one priority for us, to make sure the runway and the apron are safe. .”
During the YLW FOD march, staff members found sticks, stones, chains and zippers. But staff have even found stray wild animals in the past.
“We saw all kinds of things. We saw airplane parts occasionally, wildlife regularly. We’ve seen things blowing up from other parts of the airfield – we have a lot of construction going on. But I would say the weirdest thing we ever saw was actually a bear,” Elchitz said.
With overall safety being so important when it comes to flying, Elchitz believes that no position is more important than another and that every member of YLW has an important role to play.
“The type of people involved in our safety management system relate to all aspects of airport operations. Pilots, baggage handlers, check-in people, our fire and airport operations specialists, our own YLW staff… so it’s really a collaborative effort, and it’s really the only way to manage that.
As Airport Safety Week comes to an end at YLW, Kelowna International Airport expects traffic to exceed pre-pandemic levels in 2024.
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