The number of private jets expected to descend on Vancouver for World Cup soccer games this summer is enough for the operator of the executive air terminal at suburban Pitt Meadows Regional Airport to sense a unique business opportunity.
Most traffic will naturally go to YVR, said Geoff Bowering, owner of Integrity Flight Support at the Pitt Meadows airfield.
“But some will look and say, ‘We might as well go to the outlying (airports),’ and others will be forced to because Vancouver is full,” he said.
So Bowering has put some effort into sending out marketing materials to try to convince operators that his terminal, 30 kilometres east of downtown Vancouver, isn’t that far from the soccer action, which gets underway June 13.
“We may see some overflow traffic here, and we’re certainly preparing ourselves for that,” he said.
It is hard to know exactly how many private jets will be flying in and out of the Vancouver area — experts say jet owners and charter companies have just started making reservations — but since the World Cup is the biggest sporting event on the planet, the number could be up to 900 across the seven games in Vancouver, said Melissa Lucas Thomas, a consultant to the business-aviation sector.
On top of being Canada’s second-busiest airport for commercial airline travel, YVR is also an important hub for business travel by private jet.
The association that represents those jet owners anticipates a 30 per cent increase in private flights during the World Cup games.
“Everybody’s on hot-standby to figure it out,” said Harlan Simkins, CEO of the Canadian Business Aircraft Association.
As Vancouver is one of 16 World Cup host cities in Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, private jets are expected to be cris-crossing North America during the tournament.
“We, as an industry, actually have nothing quite to compare it to,” said Lucas Thomas, CEO of Moxie Global. “The closest thing we have to compare it to is the Super Bowl, which is kind a one-day thing, or something like the Masters.”
After the recent Masters golf tournament in Augusta, Georgia, 239 private jets left the city’s small regional airport, according to a report from Business Insider, which used the flight data tracking site JetSpy.
Those events are one-offs, said Lucas Thomas, and are “nothing compared to what football is globally.”
The World Cup has an international component, with visitors coming from all continents, and because of the complexity of operating in three host countries over several weeks, the industry is preparing “as though it is going to be multiple Super Bowls for these host cities,” Lucas Thomas said.
At YVR, officials have put a lot of work into planning for the World Cup, and teams are “very, very well rehearsed” in handling maximum commercial airline traffic while fitting in private jet travel, according to Andy Margolis, the airport’s vice-president of operations.
Private jets don’t use YVR’s main terminal. Their flights are directed to private terminals, referred to as fixed-base operators or FBOs, at the airport’s south side.
Those FBOs co-ordinate with border officers to get passengers cleared through customs and immigration, and then into limousines. They also arrange for the provision of jet fuel and maintenance for planes.
Margolis added that the FBOs work through a reservations office YVR has set up to manage private flights, and match their requests within the airport’s overall capacity.
The concluding concerts of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour in December 2024 offered YVR its last big rehearsal. Some 200 private jets flew in and out of Vancouver over the weekend, including 90 arrivals on the busiest day, Margolis said.
“From a test point of view, it wasn’t too much of a test because we are really well planned,” Margolis said. “We have such good relationships with our FBOs through this reservation office that they really understand the importance of managing the capacity.”
For the World Cup, Margolis expects the influx of private jets to be more spread out over the seven matches that Vancouver will host, compared with the Eras Tour’s intense activity over a short period.
Margolis said YVR can handle 80 movements — arrivals and departures — per hour at peak capacity. Commercial flights are busiest between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m., so the airport can typically only allow a couple of private jets an hour during that period.
Outside of those hours, however, Margolis said they anticipate being able to accommodate the arrival and departure of about 40 private jets a day around the matches, but they will be able to accommodate up to 60 on the ground.
Private jet owners have just started to book reservations, said Janine Gervais, vice-president of fixed-base operations for Skyservices, one of the handful of companies with private terminals at YVR.
“What we’re planning for and expecting is that activity will spike around each of the match days, 24 to 48 hours before and after,” Gervais said.
Margolis said he expects YVR will have most of the demand because “generally, people want to come to Vancouver.” He added that their reservation office is typically able to accommodate 98 per cent of requests for reservations.
For private jets that do have to drop off passengers and leave because YVR has run out of parking — referred to as “ramp space” in the business — Lucas Thomas said owners will likely have to reposition planes to Victoria, Kelowna or Calgary while waiting to pick them up again.
“If you are one of those locations that is, you know, not on the tip of everyone’s tongue, I think there’s an opportunity for you to get some marketing out there, and say, ‘Hey, we’ve got ramp space, come over,’” Lucas Thomas said.
Bowering has been pitching Pitt Meadows airport as “Vancouver’s executive airport.”
The airport built a new terminal four years ago, changing it from being mostly a facility for small planes in general aviation to “more of a corporately minded airport.”
Geoff Bowering of Integrity Flight Support hopes private jet traffic into the Pitt Meadows airport around World Cup games will be an economic stimulus for the region. (Arlen Redekop /Postmedia)
Pitt Meadows airport operations manager Stephen Van Dolder said he expects YVR will handle most of the private jet traffic, but there might be overflow from the bigger World Cup games, such as the elimination matches scheduled for July 2 and July 7.
In that case, Van Dolder said Pitt Meadows would have room to park 10 to 15 private jets. Bowering added that his private terminal is only about 10 to 15 minutes further from Vancouver, when you factor in traffic.
“We can even offer you an 11-minute helicopter flight to the harbour, if that’s what they want to do,” he said.
“I think it’s a great economic stimulus for the region. Businesses like mine have an opportunity to benefit from it, so I’m looking forward to it.”
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