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Abbotsford International Airport (CYXX) lies in the Fraser Valley of British Columbia, about 65 kilometres east of Vancouver, and is the second-busiest airport in the Lower Mainland after Vancouver International. Built as a wartime training aerodrome, it now combines scheduled passenger services, a busy general-aviation and flight-training scene, water-bomber operations, and an instrument landing system on its long main runway, making it a rewarding and varied destination for a VFR or IFR flight in the simulator.
Abbotsford International Airport serves the city of Abbotsford in British Columbia's Fraser Valley and is operated by the City of Abbotsford. It ranks as the second-largest airport in the Lower Mainland region after Vancouver International, and hosts a mix of scheduled airline traffic, general aviation, flight training, aerial firefighting and heavy maintenance work, giving a sim pilot a good variety of traffic and operations to fly alongside.
The airport sits in Abbotsford, British Columbia, close to British Columbia Highway 1 and not far from the Canada-US border, about 2.2 nautical miles southwest of Abbotsford's city centre and roughly 65 kilometres from downtown Vancouver. It is classified as an airport of entry, with Canada Border Services Agency staff on hand for scheduled international arrivals and for general aviation aircraft carrying no more than 15 passengers.
Abbotsford has two paired hard-surfaced runways. The main runway, 07/25, is 9,589 feet long on runway 07 and 9,295 feet on runway 25, lit, and equipped with an instrument landing system on runway 07. The secondary runway, 01/19, is 5,324 feet long in both directions and also lit. Field elevation is 184 feet.
Radio services at Abbotsford include an air-defence frequency of 132.7 MHz (Victoria Terminal), an air-ground MF frequency of 119.4 MHz, ATIS on 119.8 MHz, Ground on 121.8 MHz, Pacific Radio on 122.5 MHz, and Tower on 119.4 MHz. Runway 07 is served by an instrument landing system for precision approaches in poor weather, a legacy of the airport's historical role as a fog alternate for Vancouver.
The Royal Canadian Air Force acquired the land for Abbotsford Airport in 1940, and by 1943 had completed three runways of 5,100 feet by 200 feet laid out in a triangular pattern typical of British Commonwealth Air Training Plan aerodromes. From 1943 the No. 24 Elementary Flying Training School operated from the field until 1944, and the No. 5 Operational Conversion Unit split its activity between Abbotsford and Boundary Bay Airport. After the war the airport became a general aviation field and a secondary landing point for Vancouver International, particularly useful before instrument landing systems became widespread, since fog at Vancouver could force flights to divert to Abbotsford. Skyways Air Services and Conair Aviation both established themselves at the airport in the 1960s, and Abbotsford remains the primary base for Conair's water bomber fleet. In September 1984 Pope John Paul II held an open-air mass for over 200,000 people on the airfield. Ownership passed from the federal Department of Transport to the City of Abbotsford in January 1997 for a nominal sum, and that same year the airport became a jet passenger airport when WestJet began scheduled service to Alberta, having previously seen only regional service to Victoria from Airspeed Aviation since 1986. Canada 3000 introduced the first transcontinental service, to Toronto, in June 2000, and the airport's first international charter flight departed for Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, in December 2003. A parallel taxiway alongside runway 07/25 and an extended main apron were added in 2010, along with a run-up bay near the Cascade Aerospace hangar able to accommodate up to three medium-weight aircraft simultaneously.
Abbotsford today hosts a broad mix of operations: Cascade Aerospace, the Conair Group and the University of the Fraser Valley Aerospace Centre are all based on the field, alongside the Abbotsford Shell Aerocentre FBO and flying schools including Coastal Pacific Aviation, Principal Air and Chinook Helicopters. The airport is also the venue for the Abbotsford International Airshow, the Defense and Security Expo, and the Tradex events centre. WestJet and Flair Airlines operate scheduled passenger services from the airport.
