Cold Lake Wants to Bring Commercial Air Travel to the City

The City of Cold Lake continues to lobby for its airport to receive a Canadian Airport Travel Security Authority (CATSA) designation, which would allow passengers to check and screen their luggage in Cold Lake. Mayor of Cold Lake Craig Copeland says the City has been noted

“If commercial air is able to come into Cold Lake, there’s some measures that we’re going to need to take to make sure the Medley terminal is good to go, in terms of the CATSA screening. There will be some costs, so we’re reaching out to the Feds to see if they want to get involved in commercial air coming to Cold Lake.” Mayor Copeland explains recently, MP for Fort McMurray-Cold Lake, David Yurdiga had asked Cold Lake to name major infrastructure projects it felt needed Federal funding and/or attention. Along with Highway 28 (within the City) and storm water/sewer projects, Cold Lake has let Mr. Yurdiga know that CATSA designation is a major priority for the City. “Those were the three requests, we’ll cross our fingers, but Cold Lake has not received any Federal money since 2006.”

Bringing commercial air to Cold Lake is progressing really well, says the Mayor, “we’re in discussions with CATSA, determining what the cost of setting up CATSA will be and the equipment & personnel required to operate out of Cold Lake. Once we have those costs we’ll bring it to Council for some decision-making.” Mayor Copeland says due to the downturn economy, the City is able to take its time in making sure all the requirements are met.

“Ourselves and Edson have been identified as the two airports in Alberta that can pursue CATSA,” Mayor Copeland is hopeful that the designation will come through in the near future, “this is a big win for our area to be able to get screened passenger air travel out of Cold Lake.”CATSA would allow passengers to check their luggage in Cold Lake and not have to re-check when connecting to other flights, “from Cold Lake your baggage and yourself are screened and you’re going to land right inside a Calgary or Edmonton terminal and from there you can proceed to any airport in the world.”

It’s going to have a real benefit to the snowbird population, you can leave Cold Lake and be in Phoenix the same day! – Craig Copeland Mayor of Cold Lake

Mayor Copeland doesn’t expect commercial air in Cold Lake to negatively affect neighbouring airports, “we never pursued oilfield charter, we’ll leave that to the Bonnyville airport. We’re pursuing scheduled passenger air, from a big carrier, to come in and provide a Calgary – Cold Lake run. That seems to be the biggest need.” Due to a non-disclosure agreement, Mayor Copeland isn’t able to reveal too many details, but does say that a major commercial airline was interested in flying to-from Cold Lake in 2014. The idea is once CATSA is designated for the Medley terminal, the City will ask the carrier if they are still interested in the city.