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Summerside Airport (CYSU) lies at Slemon Park on Prince Edward Island, a few miles north-northwest of the city of Summerside, and is a former Royal Canadian Air Force base with two long paved runways more typical of a military field than a small GA strip. Today it serves general aviation, aircraft maintenance operators and occasional charter traffic rather than scheduled airline service. Its scale and history as a British Commonwealth Air Training Plan station make it a distinctive stop for a simulator pilot exploring Prince Edward Island.
Summerside Airport is a former military aerodrome at Slemon Park, Prince Edward Island, now operated as a civilian airfield with a small general aviation community and several aircraft maintenance companies based on the field. Its long, wide, ex-RCAF runways and Cold War heritage give it a very different character from the island's other airfields, and it makes an interesting destination for a pilot wanting to fly into a former Commonwealth training base.
The airfield sits about 3.5 nautical miles north-northwest of the city of Summerside, Prince Edward Island, within the township of Lot 17 rather than the city itself, with the residential area of Slemon Park adjoining the airport property. En-route traffic in the area is worked by Moncton Center.
Summerside has two physical runways. Runway 05/23 is a hard-surfaced, lit runway approximately 7,987 ft long. Runway 12/30 is a hard-surfaced, lit runway approximately 5,486 ft long. Field elevation is 39 ft. There is no ILS at the airport.
An Automated Weather Observation System broadcasts on 122.55 MHz. Moncton Center provides area control services on 124.4 MHz. Traffic and airfield operations use 122.95 MHz as the Aerodrome Traffic Frequency and UNICOM.
The airfield was established in 1940 as RCAF Station Summerside and served as a training base for aircrews under the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan during the Second World War. It was renamed CFB Summerside in 1968 and, during the Cold War, hosted search and rescue and coastal surveillance units. The base closed in 1990 and its property was transferred to the Slemon Park Corporation, a local development authority, after which the airfield took on its current name. In earlier decades the airport also saw scheduled passenger service: Eastern Provincial Airways flew Douglas DC-3 and Handley Page Dart Herald aircraft to Moncton, the Magdalen Islands and, via Charlottetown, to Halifax, Sydney, Deer Lake, Gander and St. John's during the 1960s and early 1970s. Atlantic Island Airways operated Fokker F28 jet service to Ottawa and Toronto in 1995, and WestJet served the airport with Boeing 737-700 and 737-800 aircraft as late as 2009 before ceasing flights into Summerside.
Summerside Airport is now home to several aircraft maintenance companies alongside a small general aviation community, with the airfield and its industrial properties located in the township of Lot 17 adjacent to the Slemon Park residential area. Scheduled passenger airline service has ended, with WestJet's departure in 2009 marking the last such operation; Charlottetown Airport now handles scheduled traffic on the island instead.
