Charlottetown Airport asks for patience during runway construction

Charlottetown Airport is asking travellers to be patient as constructionis about halfway complete on the airport'snew main runway.

Airport officials confirm there hasbeen a slight increase in cancellations and delays since the work started this spring, but say they've received no formal complaints since a particularly bad day of weather back in April.

CEO Doug Newson saysdisruptions have been minimal in the last three months, the airlines completed about 97 per cent of their flight schedules, and not all disruptions were linked to the construction.

"It's regrettable when there areflights that get disrupted, but I think overall it's gone very well," said Newson.

'Short-term pain'

Newsonpointed out the new runway is a "once-in-30-year project," adding"there is a bit of short term pain."

"But once this project is completed we'll have two fairly new runways and we won't be doing any major repair work for the foreseeable future," he said.

During construction on the main runwayall planes are taking off and landing using the airport's new secondary runway. Itdoesn't have the same navigation capabilities as the main landing strip,so landing infog or low cloud can be more difficult.

"But we certainly want people to book with assurances that our flights are going to operate and the airlines will get them here as quickly and safely as possible."

Newson said construction is on schedulethanks to the hot, dry weather.

This week crews are starting to lay down asphalt for the new runway, which they hope to completeby September.

The next step will be to paint lines and run tests.

The $18 millionproject is set to be completed by mid-October.

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