Steinbach North Airport has been busier than ever this year with Wings Over Kississing moving to Steinbach and increased traffic from Harv’s Air.

In late August the runway at Harv’s Air was torn up to be repaved. The paving process was initially scheduled to take place on September 18th, however, with all of the rain we received this fall, the process has been stalled ever since. In the meantime, Harv’s air has been using Steinbach North quite heavily to avoid landing on the loose gravel at their own airport.

Bardia Salimkhani is the President of the Steinbach Flying Club. He notes overall the increased traffic at Steinbach North has been welcome.

"I think with the increased traffic, it was good proof that the airport has the capacity to handle that traffic. Harv's Air or Steinbach South is actually one of the busiest airports in Canada, defined by the number of take-offs and landings in an hour and that traffic has moved to Steinbach North now and we have been operating fine."

Salimkhani says the added traffic has meant that there are sometimes short lines to take off, and people might have to wait a little bit to fuel up, but these are issues that any busy airport has to deal with and when you have a busy airport, you know business is good. He notes winter should be a bit quieter, but the added traffic from Harv’s Air will return next spring.

"I believe when the temperatures are cold enough and the gravel runway is frozen at Steinbach South, then they can use their own runway. They will be moving back to our airport in spring when everything is melting before they can pave the runway."

Salimkhani says students and trainers from Harv’s Air have been great to work with this fall.

A spokesperson from Harv’s Air says they hope to have their runway repaved between mid-May and mid-June of 2020 but it will all depend on the weather.

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