Iqaluit airport set to “seamlessly” receive Arctic Council delegates

Air traffic at the Iqaluit Airport will be up between April 23 and April 25 due to the April 24 Arctic Council ministerial meeting. (PHOTO BY PETER VARGA)

The Iqaluit airport is set to receive a few more planes than usual in advance of this week’s Arctic Council ministerial meeting, April 24 — but none of it will affect passenger or other normal air traffic, airport director John Hawkins said.

“I think it’s going to go pretty seamlessly, from the airport’s perspective,” Hawkins told Nunatsiaq News, April 22.

High-level government delegates from the council’s eight circumpolar member countries — Canada, the United States, Russia, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, and Iceland, and members of six Aboriginal groups, who sit as permanent participants at the council — are arriving in the Nunavut capital this week.

The council’s biggest delegations will arrive on four planes April 23 and April 24 in the morning, but they won’t affect regular air traffic at all, Hawkins said.

The airport director works at Nunavut’s Department of Economic Development and Transportation.

“The traffic will all be away from the terminal building. It’s not going to impact the terminal operations,” he said.

The largest aircraft expected for the April 24 meeting is a Boeing 757 from the U.S., Hawkins said. Commercial airline versions of the Boeing plane can typically seat 200 or more passengers.

That is likely to be the most impressive aircraft to land. Other delegate aircraft will be smaller passenger planes, comparable to Bombardier Challenger aircraft, which seat up to 19.

About 40 delegates will be arriving in the four planes.

“All of that transportation will be handled straight through airside” at the airport’s large apron, well away from the terminal, Hawkins said.

From there they will make their way through the city in motorcades. Security will be handled largely by the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, which is coordinating all logistics of the meeting with Nunavut’s Department of Executive and Intergovernmental Affairs, Hawkins said.

The RCMP will assist with security in the city.

Compared to past high-level international government meetings in Iqaluit, the Arctic Council’s delegations are “relatively small,” Hawkins said.

The airport manager recalled the G7 meeting in 2010, which hosted the finance ministers of the world’s largest economies, as the largest in recent memory.

Several delegations and observers are arriving in the city on regular commercial flights as well. Unlike their larger counterparts, they are passing through the terminal building as regular passengers.

The addition of four more delegate planes to usual aircraft movements at the airport will simply restrict some movement of aircraft on the large apron, Hawkins said, due to construction work underway as part of the Iqaluit airport improvement project.

The four planes will depart on April 25, after meetings at Nunavut’s legislative assembly have concluded.