Airport Experience® News - Retail & Services Issue 2025

DIRECTOR’S CHAIR

WARD: Can you share some detail on the capital projects currently underway? DINSDALE: Around Christmas we should be just wrapping up the first phase of a centralized screening area [in the domestic terminal] – we’re [consolidating] our A, B and C domestic screening into one. That will mean better quality, better queue management and just a better experience for passengers. It also will give us about 30% more capacity, which will give us room to grow in the future. Also, we’re in the second year of fully redoing our west runway, which should wrap up fully by November. Last summer we had a major hailstorm, which resulted in us having to close one of five concourses. It’s been closed for the last year and it will be closed another two years. [The cost will be] something north of C$200 million. WARD; Did the closure of that concourse cause capacity constraints? DINSDALE: None that are visible to the passenger. There’s a little bit more walking now, but people have been quite patient with it. We lost a third of our domestic capacity so we’ve had to spread traffic out a bit more. WARD: Can you talk a bit about how the passenger experience is evolving at YYC? DINSDALE: The International Terminal is a call-to-gate concept. I’m not a huge fan of call-to-gate, but it is what it is and there’s no changing it now.

The domestic terminal is a totally different story. When the terminal was built, they put the retail into the concourses, taking away seating capacity. Now that the airport has grown, you simply have very busy concourses but the main body of the domestic terminal is quite empty. We’re on the path to change that. The check-in area will feel quite new by next spring because of the new passenger screening, and then we’ll have a new Concourse B two years from now. Next, we’ll start building two new retail nodes on each side of the central screening. They’re beautiful halls, with views of the city, of the mountains, of the airside. The spaces are just begging for retail. We’ll pull [most of the retail] out of the concourses. We’ll put in new toilets, new play areas, [more] restaurants…. Eventually we’ll [refresh] the other two concourses as well. We’re on a four-year journey to get the domestic terminal up to the quality of the International transborder terminal. WARD: Referencing the retail wings, is that simply moving things around or will you be adding more concessions options? DINSDALE: It will be a mix of both. We’ll also add lounge capacity. There’s a project underway now to move [the current lounge] up one level into a nice, big space.

Above: YYC is seeing moderate passenger growth this year. Traffic to the U.S. is stable, but solid increases are being recorded for other international destinations.

WARD: Is that a common-use lounge? DINSDALE: The lounge that we would move is currently run by an airline…but we’re up for any solution – whatever is best for our passengers and financially. WARD: For the new concessions, do you have a timeframe on when opportunities will be available? DINSDALE: For the major changes… we’re looking at two and three years. For anyone who’s serious, the conversation needs to start early. We’re open to all possibilities. Our chief commercial officer landed [at YYC] just under a year ago. He’s hungry, he’s out there talking, and now is the time for those conversations.

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AX NEWS SEPTEMBER 2025