St. John's airport terminal reopens Sunday after 2-day closure due to fire
The terminal at the airport in St. John's has reopened to passengers Sunday evening, after a fire on Friday night led to the closure of the building.
The St. John's International Airport Authority says the terminal opened to the public at 5 p.m. Sunday, with flight operations to resume at 7 p.m.
The airport terminal was closed due to a fire that occurred around 11:30 p.m. Friday on the second floor of the terminal building.
Dennis Hogan, the CEO of the airport authority, said Saturday that the extent of the damage to the building, including smoke and water damage, was worse than initially thought. It was first thought service could resume Saturday night.
In a news release Sunday afternoon, the airport authority said remediation and operation teams have been "working tirelessly," and that the affected area is being cordoned off.
Despite the closure, PAL Airlines continued its flight services to and from St. John's by operating from its hangar on RCAF Road.
Joe Galimberti, the airline's senior vice president of public affairs, says about 250 passengers departed from St. John's and around 100 passengers arrived on PAL Airlines flights Sunday.
"We thought it was really important to get people moving today as much as we could," said Galimberti.
"It's a bit of a remarkable instance to have a terminal be closed for any kind of circumstances."
Hogan said about 36 commercial flights were cancelled or delayed due to the fire and the winter storm conditions that faced much of eastern Newfoundland on Saturday.
In an emailed statement to CBC News, Sunwing said impacted passengers should continue checking their flight status for the most up-to-date information and "reconfirm their transfer times with their Sunwing representative in destination before heading to the airport."
In an emailed statement, Swoop said two of its flights originally scheduled for Sunday were cancelled due to the fire, and that impacted travellers have been re-booked on recovery flights on Tuesday.
Porter Airlines said in an email that it is resuming flights when the terminal reopens and all affected passengers are being contacted.
The airport authority said passengers are still advised to contact airlines for travel arrangements and logistics.
The cause of the fire is still unknown. Only commercial flights were affected by the terminal closure.
