More than 40 flights to St. John's cancelled on the weekend
More than 40 flights couldn't get into St. John's this weekend due to a mix of runway construction and poor weather, causing frustration for travellers trying to fly in and out.
Between Friday evening and Sunday morning, 42 arriving flights were cancelled along with subsequent departures.
The St. John's International Airport Authority said, in a news release, it's in the midst of construction on the intersection between the primary and secondary runway. The work began on July 7 and is expected to finish next week.
During construction, the secondary runway is shorter and has limited capability during low visibility weather.
The authority said that while it conducted extensive analysis to decide when to complete the work, it couldn't predict last weekend's weather.
"The weather experienced this past weekend, however, was unprecedented for mid-July and was not conducive for safe flight operations," the release read.
In order to operate, the runway must have a ceiling height of 500 feet and forward visibility of more than one mile. The airport authority said, in the past few days, ceiling heights were well below 500 feet and sometimes as low as 100 feet.
"We understand that it is never a convenient time to close a runway, and we appreciate the impact that this has on families travelling, on visitors to the province, and on the entire community," said Marie Manning, director of marketing and business development, in the statement.
"The work that is being completed this year, however, is necessary to improve the level of service for our airline partners and passengers, and the substantial benefits that will result will be enjoyed for many years to come. It will mean that the flight impacts experienced this weekend due to low visibility will be no more."
The construction is part of improvements to the airport in the third and final year of the airport's Airfield Accessibility and Safety Initiative.
Stranded passenger take $350 cab
Steven Kelly was one of thousands of passengers whose travel was disrupted on the weekend.
Kelly was trying to get home to St. John's when all flights from Toronto were cancelled.
"I mean there were hundreds of people out of concert tickets and out of plans and homesick," Kelly said. "And they told me the next time I could fly to St. John's was Tuesday night. I didn't want to do that."
Kelly eventually managed to secure an earlier flight to what he thought was St. John's.
However, it wasn't until the passengers were on the plane that they were told they were actually going to Gander.
"I had no idea how to get from Gander to St John's. So I called every rental car company in the town. I called cab companies. I called friends, family," he said.
"To be honest, I was just happy to be back in Newfoundland. I knew I would get to St. John's. I would have appreciated a little bit more transparency on that a little earlier."
Kelly ended up pooling money with people sitting around him, and took a $350 cab from the Gander airport into St. John's.
"There's no good time to do airport maintenance, especially runway maintenance," he said.
"I just hope they finish the construction as quick as possible so flights in and out of Newfoundland can move quicker."
The airport's primary runway was closed in early June and will remain closed until the end of September.
