There was a celebration at YPK on March 10, as the busy Pitt Meadows Regional Airport officially opened a second aviation fueling facility.
The Aero Club of B.C. is a non-profit organization that sells fuel at YPK, and opened a new north side fuel kiosk in partnership with the YPK administration and the Pitt Meadows Airport Society. Mayors from both Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows, who jointly run the airport, spoke at the event and took part in a ribbon cutting.
Chris Georgas, a spokesperson for the Aero Club, said it was a good day for the airport partners to celebrate the growth there.
He noted the airport is increasingly busy. There are 11 flight schools operating there, in an airport he calls an "aviation incubator, and one school alone has 10 planes that if flies and must re-fuel, he said. So the second fuel kiosk brings convenience for pilots who need to keep their engines running.
Georgas explained that gas companies have operated at the airport in the past, but the refueling operations were not commercially viable, and better left to the Aero Club. The club was one of just two in Canada when it was founded in 1915 to train pilots for military service. It was based in Richmond, and helped develop the Vancouver International Airport. In 1963 it relocated its operations to a hangar in Pitt Meadows, becoming the new airport's first tenant, with 37 members and about 24 planes.
The club has about 150 members, and in 1994, when Esso and Shell removed fueling facilities from the airport, the Aero Club stepped up with a self-serve pump.
