Halifax Stanfield International Airport will construct a new international connections facility by the fall of next year to make Atlantic Canada's air-travel hub a more attractive destination for flights from abroad.
The airport, which will offer passenger flights to about 20 destinations outside Canada next year, has received $8.4 million (US$6.2 million) in funding from the federal government for the project. The grant was made to the Halifax International Airport Authority (HIAA), the federally backed agency that operates the airport.
"The facility will improve the connections process for air passengers arriving into Canada on international flights as well as to connecting to domestic destinations," the federal government's National Trade Corridors Fund said in a statement. "The additional cargo capacity will also support the movement of goods between Nova Scotia and international markets."
No details were provided about the total cost of the project or its impact on the airport's current capacity and operations.
An official for Transport Canada said an "announcement is scheduled in the coming weeks," declining to elaborate. An HIAA official declined to comment.
Halifax Stanfield, Canada's eighth-busiest airport, has scheduled year-round flights to London and Boston, and summer services to Frankfurt, Philadelphia and Washington. Flights to Reykjavik, Iceland, Edinburgh and Dublin will begin this summer. Winter flights go to warm-weather destinations in Cuba, Mexico and Florida.
HIAA says in a summary of its 2041 master plan: "In the near-to-medium term, an expanded International-To-Domestic Connections facility will be developed on a newly constructed floor above the International Arrivals Hall, to provide additional capacity for processing passengers arriving on international flights and connecting to an onward domestic flight."
The HIAA master plan forecasts that the airport will serve 6.6 million passengers by 2041, up from 3.6 million in 2023. Passenger traffic was 4.2 million in 2019, the year before the pandemic. Passenger figures are not broken out under the domestic and international categories. A total of $700 million has been invested in the airport since 2000, according to the master plan.
Halifax Stanfield is among Canada's 10 busiest cargo airports, according to the airport.
--HBB
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