Departure
96%
vs 95%
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Grande Prairie Airport (CYQU) is the principal commercial aerodrome of the Peace River Country, sitting a few nautical miles northwest of the city of Grande Prairie in northern Alberta. It offers a long ILS-equipped hard-surfaced runway suitable for airliners and general aviation alike, alongside a busy training and gliding presence, making it a useful and instructive stop for simulator pilots flying in the region.
Grande Prairie Airport is a medium-sized commercial aerodrome serving the city of Grande Prairie and the wider Peace River Country of northwestern Alberta and northeastern British Columbia. It is operated by the Grande Prairie Airport Commission and functions as the region's main air gateway, handling scheduled regional airline services as well as charter, cargo, and general aviation traffic tied to the area's oil and gas industry. For a simulator pilot, it offers a good mix of a long ILS runway, an active flight service station, and a busy General Aviation and gliding scene.
The airport lies about 3 nautical miles west-northwest of downtown Grande Prairie, Alberta, within the Edmonton Flight Information Region. Terminal air traffic advisory is provided by the Grande Prairie flight service station, with area control delegated to Edmonton Centre.
Grande Prairie has two paved runways. The longer is runway 12/30, a hard-surfaced strip of 8,471 feet lit for night operations, with an instrument landing system serving runway 30. The second runway, 07/25, is 6,149 to 6,150 feet long, also hard-surfaced and lit, but without an ILS.
Grande Prairie Radio provides mandatory frequency (MF) advisory service on 118.1 MHz, which also carries flight service station traffic. ATIS is broadcast on 128.6 MHz. Edmonton Centre provides area control on 134.5 MHz, and Edmonton Radio can be reached via the remote communications outlet on 122.5 MHz. Runway 30 is served by an ILS.
Grande Prairie has a long history of scheduled air service. Canadian Pacific Air Lines began flying into the airport in the early 1940s, and its successors CP Air and Canadian Airlines International served the field for decades afterwards; during the 1970s and 1980s CP Air operated Boeing 737-200 flights linking Grande Prairie with Edmonton, Vancouver, Prince George, Fort St. John, Fort Nelson and Whitehorse. The Alberta-based regional carrier Time Air also served the airport in the 1970s with de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter flights to Edmonton, Calgary and Red Deer. The terminal building dates from 1981 and has since been expanded several times. The airport has seen two notable accidents: on 29 June 2000 an Air Spray Douglas A-26 Invader suffered a double engine failure on final approach after a firefighting mission and crashed short of the runway, with the pilot escaping injured; and on 7 April 2001 a Beechcraft 100 King Air operated by Alberta Central Airways slid off the runway after touching down in snow, with all occupants unharmed but the aircraft written off.
The airport is currently served by Air Canada Express and WestJet Encore, both operating propjet flights to Edmonton and Calgary; Flair Airlines briefly operated from the field before suspending service. Passenger numbers have been substantial in recent years, with the airport ranking among Canada's busier regional fields. Grande Prairie also hosts the Royal Canadian Air Cadets Peace Region Gliding Program, which flies Schweizer 2-33A gliders using a winch launch, giving the field an active general aviation and gliding character alongside its airline traffic.
