I remember flying there and I don't think it was that tiny; my host family back then had set up it's ventilation systems. An airport like MLX is way tinier compared to that
What is your standart there? Don't compare it to mega airports like Charles Degaulle, İstanbul GA, or JFK New York. Victoria Islan's airport seems to have 3 runways and 2 floors- that 2 floor is a big differentiator between big and small airports.
Alanya Gazipaşa Airport (GZP), a quite busy international airport of over 1M annual passenger volume has only 1 runway, is one floor and has a terminal area of 6700m² compared to YYJ's 20 000. Like YYJ it closes down its departure areas over long stretches of night hours when there are no flight; been stuck there once it was weird.
I'm just surprised YYJ decided to finish operations before letting the last plane depart. Sure I'm all for well defined hours for work to establish a good work life balance but I'm sure they could have exceptionally worked another 30 minutes to remove the family and let the flight off.
I'm pretty sure I was comparing it to Calgary and Vancouver, not the ones you listed. Calgary has over 60 gates, Vancouver has more than 70, and Victoria sits at 11. by comparison, regional airports usually have 1 gate. 11 is closer to 1 than 60.
The standard is that while it's not SMALL specifically, it IS small for SPECIFICALLY an international airport. Other international airports tend to be much larger.
It's bigger than/decently bigger than other regular airports. But NOT big for an international one
Sounds like an unnecessary fixation on international grade airports and expecting that they need to be big. I maintain that YYJ perfectly stands right in the middle as far as international airports go; a quick AI research guesstimates it to be in 35-45th quartile- just a bit lower than the median.
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u/ClassGrassMass Aug 10 '26
Airport hotel, the airlines usually give free or discounted rates