By Charles Lefebvre/ Chat News Today

WestJet Link to serve Medicine Hat, Lethbridge next year

Nov 24, 2017 | 3:56 PM

Canada’s second-largest airline will begin taking off and landing in Medicine Hat next year.

Starting on May 31st, WestJet will begin offering service from here to the Calgary International Airport through its new service WestJet Link. The new service, a capacity purchase agreement with Pacific Coastal Airlines, will see service added to Medicine Hat, Lethbridge, and Lloydminster, along with Cranbrook and Prince George.

In recent years, the City of Medicine Hat has been undertaking significant renovation work at the regional airport, with the goal of adding an additional carrier.

In 2015, the airport terminal was expanded and renovated. The project cost $5.5 million, with $3 million in funding coming from the province.

Last year, rehabilitation and expansion work on the terminal apron and taxiway took place, which cost $1.7 million. Of the cost, the province funded $784,000 of the total.

From May 7 to May 31, the city will be undertaking a major project to resurface the runway. The $12.9 million project is being fully funded by the federal government.

Mayor Ted Clugston says he’s excited to see the new airline operate out of Medicine Hat.

“It’s been a lot of hard work by quite a few people,” he said. “Of course, all of our city staff, the Chamber of Commerce worked on this, the previous council approved the airport expansion, the airport remodelling, the new aprons, and we were lucky to get almost $13 million from the federal government to redo the runway.”

Clugston says the discussions to get WestJet to Medicine hat took over 10 years, and adds the renovations to the airport and runways were one of the factors for the company in choosing Medicine Hat.

The mayor adds having the two largest carriers in the country offering flights in the city could have a positive benefit for local travellers.

“I think really what’s going to be the game changer is ‘Do I drive to Calgary, or do i fly?’” he said. “I think now with the two major carriers, and the competition is healthy…we should see some prices where you probably will make that decision that if you’re connecting in Calgary to go somewhere else in the world, you might just fly now rather than drive there.”

The service will be using a 34 seat Saab 340 B aircraft painted in WestJet colours. There will be three flights offered daily between Calgary and Medicine Hat on launch day.