By Jacqueline Louie | September 22, 2017 Estimated reading time 4 minutes, 23 seconds.
Despite rain and temperatures dipping to near zero on the last day of summer, the mood was sunny at WestJet’s Calgary campus on Sept. 21, 2017, as the airline broke ground on a new $50-million wide-body maintenance hangar that will house its new Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft.
The start of construction on the eight-storey, 125,000-square-foot hangar marks an exciting new chapter in the Calgary-based airline’s growth, WestJet president and CEO, Gregg Saretsky, told the crowd gathered for the groundbreaking ceremony.
“We’re going global. This hangar is not just a new maintenance facility, but also a symbol of WestJet’s ongoing fleet expansion and continued growth of our hub at the Calgary International Airport,” he said. “The new hangar will significantly increase our ability to carry out line maintenance on our growing fleet, which is important to serving our guests to the best of our abilities.”
Designed by Stantec and constructed by CANA, two long-term WestJet vendors that worked on the original construction of the WestJet campus, the new hangar is scheduled for completion in the spring of 2019. Three times the size of a football field, it will be able to accommodate one 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft and two narrow-body 737s at the same time. It will also include two floors of office space with approximately 130 work stations.
Also of note, the project has been designed with a high level of energy efficiency in mind, above National Energy Code of Canada for Buildings standards, noted Stantec design architect Kevin Nguyen-Cao and Stantec executive vice-president, Canada, Russ Wlad.
The wide-body hangar marks the next step in WestJet’s evolution as an international airline, opening up new opportunities for passengers and businesses to connect to more global destinations from YYC.
WestJet–which purchased 10 Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft this past spring, with an option to later purchase 10 additional aircraft–expects the first Dreamliner to arrive in January 2019. With an approximate range of 14 hours, the Dreamliner aircraft will enable WestJet to fly to new destinations around the globe.
The largest carrier at YYC Calgary International Airport, WestJet is a major driver of growth in the city. The new wide-body hangar will further solidify the airline’s network for business and leisure travel from Calgary.
“This new wide-body hangar that WestJet is putting in place is a big deal for the airport and the city,” said Calgary Airport Authority president and CEO, Bob Sartor. “As we work together to strengthen Calgary’s ties to business and leisure markets, this latest investment will position WestJet and YYC for continued growth, bringing a host of new economic opportunities to the city and region we serve.”
And from a Canadian perspective, for the first time in a long time, this next step in WestJet’s growth means that Canada will have two truly international carriers, Sartor added.
For WestJet, Calgary has been home since the airline’s inception in 1996, when it served five domestic destinations. Today, it’s an international carrier flying to 57 nonstop destinations–“and tomorrow the world,” said Saretsky.
