An aircraft de-icing facility at Red Deer Regional Airport will help entice air carriers to local runways, the CEO of the airport authority said on Friday.
Liam O’Connell spoke after an airport news conference about a nearly half-million-dollar investment in the de-icing structure, construction of which is set to begin this summer.
Air carriers look at an airport’s reliability when they’re considering which locations to use, he said.
“An aircraft cannot fly with frost or ice on the wings,” said O’Connell. “So what this does is it takes another barrier out of the way for scheduled airlines to say, ‘This is an airport we’ll fly out of.’ ”
The $450,000 facility will be built thanks to a $150,000 from the federal government’s Community Adjustment Fund, with matching funding from the City of Red Deer and Red Deer County.
mgauk@www.reddeeradvocate.com