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The Bathurst Regional Airport will continue its goal of expansion with the introduction of a larger plane this May The airport currently offers two daily flights to Montreal aboard a 37-seat plane Jennifer Henry, executive director at the airport, said one of those flights will be on a larger plane starting this May.

“What we’ve done is instead of having two 37-seat planes, beginning May 1 we’ll have one of those planes be a 50-seater ” .

The morning flight will use the 50-seat plane while the afternoon flight will still feature the 37-seater “.

The flight that comes in at 11:50 (p m from Montreal) will be a 50-seater so we will be able to bring 50 people in and then at the morning flight at 6:35 (a m ) 50 people will be able to depart The regular afternoon flight will still be at 37 seats,” said Henry.

She said the 50-seater was needed to feed the demand of passengers.

“We wanted to provide more service to people of the area and offer basically increased service and meeting the demand that we’ve had here for more seats,” Henry said, noting that the extra seats will accommodate an average of 780 additional passengers a month The local airport contract with Air Canada Jazz for the 50-seater is a six-month deal Henry said if the airport is successful in filling the larger plane, an additional 50-seater will be sought to replace the remaining 37-seat aircraft.

“If this all goes well we can build a business case for two 50-seaters for both our flights for the morning and afternoon This also helps us later on to show that there is a need for more air service in this region and help us build a case for a new airport ”.

Last month, the Regional Airport Commission announced its hope to build a new airport by 2012 at a cost of more than $25 million There would be two landing strips instead of one, and the length would be 7,000 feet -¬ instead of the present 4,500 - in order to accommodate larger planes.

A 50-seater plane is the largest the current runway can accommodate If a new airport is built, Henry said 737s, a jet which provides more than 100 seats, could be landed.

“We would be able to bring in your typical charter planes that would fly south and the jet planes that could go to other destinations such as Toronto, Ottawa, etc,” she said.

Donald Hammond, general manager of Enterprise Chaleur, said it’s good news to increase capacity of air service and it shows the economy is improving “There was a need for it so that’s good news and it’s a strong indication that the economy is doing good The better the economy is, the more you need services like that ”.

Français : L’Aéroport régional de Bathurst poursuit ses efforts visant son agrandissement en ajoutant un avion pouvant siéger jusqu’à 50 passagers et ce, dès le mois de mai.