Sechelt Mayor John Henderson will be pitching use of the municipal airport to WestJet at the end of this month, in the hope the major airline will consider providing service to Sechelt in the future.
"They've invited us, as well as 25 or 30 other communities, and we're all going to go to Calgary to give them a pitch," Henderson said.
He said he got in touch with WestJet earlier this year when the company announced they were considering starting a regional airline service with smaller aircrafts flying to smaller communities.
"So I thought, 'well, we should get in touch with WestJet and tell them that Sechelt's pretty good and they might want to be here,'" Henderson said.
Recently WestJet called Henderson back and invited him to come to Calgary to give a formal pitch.
He was excited at the prospect and the District is currently preparing for the presentation, but he notes it's not all good news.
"So when I say it's not all good news, the reason I say that is because what we've been able to learn is that they have some plans for aircrafts that wouldn't be the big 747s, but even the aircrafts they're talking about might need a runway that's too long for us," Henderson said. "WestJet is not coming to Sechelt any time soon, but I keep talking about putting Sechelt on the map, and in this case, it's fair to say Sechelt is on WestJet's map."
He hoped that getting noticed might lead to something in the future.
"Certainly a big part of this from my point of view is that we want them to notice Sechelt and realize that if not now, then maybe later," Henderson said. "We're a dynamic community and lots of people would want to fly and so we're doing a lot of work internally with our airport committee to get ready for this presentation at the end of the month."
