'On time, on budget': Runway extension project nears completion

The second phase of a $7 to $8 million runway extension at the Charlottetown Airport is preparing for its final descent.

Crews have been laying asphalt this week to the smaller of the airport's two runways which is being extended 609 metres to create a 2,133 metre runway.

"It is on schedule, so we should have it in our hands in early September sometime, but after that there will be some additional work required before it's fully certified for commercial aircraft, but things are going well, on budget, on time," said Charlottetown Airport Authority CEO Doug Newson.

'We looked at a number of options'

The extension is needed because theairport will shut the mainrunway down andrepairits surface next summer.

"That will be closed for most of the construction season from early May to November time, and 5,000 feet just isn't enough runway length for the major jet traffic that we're seeing here now at the airport authority," Newsonsaid.

"We looked at a number of options, doing night work, keeping it active while we do construction, but at the end of the day it was much more feasible for us to do this extension now."

'Much heavier than a roadway'

Chapman Brothers Construction Ltd. based in Souris, P.E.I., were hired for the massive project.

The company has been in business for over 52 years, but never been involved in anything like this before.

"This is our first airport project, but we're involved in a lot of major construction activities across the Maritimes," said Jeffrey Chapman.

"The general design of the structure or the runway structure is much heavier than a roadway. The pavement is meant to carry heavier loads, seeing more shock loading. It took us a few iterations to get the proper asphalt design we were happy with, but we're satisfied now that everything's gonna work."

'Pressure on our main runway'

Over 8,000 tonnes of asphalt or the equivalent of six km of road has been used during theproject.

In all, it's taken more than 50,000 tonnes of gravel and2,300 truck trips to the construction site in one of the largest projects ever undertaken at the airport.

"It hasn't had any impact on our commercial traffic," Newson said.

"The only thing you might say is by having only one active runway we're not spreading the traffic around and it's putting more pressure on our main runway, but we're going to be closing that next year for a full reconstruction."

"Long term the other benefit this provides is that we should see a bigger distribution of our traffic, so it will aircraft using both runways which should extend the life of our main runway."

The entire project is expected to cost $20 million.

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