YLW experiences aviation fuel pump failure, advises travellers to check flights before heading to airport

More travel issues at YLW

There are more travel issues at Kelowna International Airport Wednesday morning.

An aviation fuel tank pump at the airport has failed, and it’s preventing the fuel trucks from being able to refill and service departing aircraft.

A traveller who’s headed to Kelowna is stuck on the runway in Calgary Wednesday morning. He told Castanet the pilot came on and indicated the flight would be delayed due to potential fuel issues at YLW.

Kelowna International Airport director Sam Sammadar says the aviation fuel tank pump at YLW failed Wednesday at 9 a.m.

“What we have is our fuelling facility, run by Shell, has a failure of their primary pump. And so it’s not that we don’t have fuel, we have lots of fuel at the airport and we do have a redundancy pump right on site,” he said. “So they’re in the process right now of installing that.”

Sammadar says they expect the repairs to be completed and the fuel pump to be back in full operation by 1 p.m. YLW issued what they call a NOTAM (notice to airmen) when the issue first occurred.

Sammadar says the issue hasn’t caused any delays at this point but he can’t guarantee there won’t be some disruptions.

“While this work takes place there may be some delayed and/or cancelled flights,” Sammadar says.

“We thank passengers for their continued patience as we work to resolve this issue and get them on their way.”

Passengers are encouraged to check with their airline for the most up-to-date flight information before coming to the airport.