Royals new airport’s first passengers

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 29/06/2010 (5553 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

ON Queen Elizabeth’s previous visits to Winnipeg she was met on the tarmac by a military honour guard, but upon arrival in the city this weekend, the Queen and Prince Philip will take virtually the same steps everyone else who flies into the new Richardson International Airport will go through.

The royal couple is scheduled to arrive shortly after noon on Saturday and in the process will christen the still-under-construction $585-million terminal building as its first-ever passengers.

Upon emerging from Gate 7, they will be met by a selection of VIPs, including Premier Greg Selinger, Lt.-Gov. Philip Lee and Barry Rempel and Arthur Mauro, CEO and chairman of the Winnipeg Airports Authority, respectively.

There will be a brief ceremony at which the royals will unveil a plaque commemorating their arrival and be shown an artist’s model of what the finished terminal building will look like. The Queen will also sign a letter for the youth of 2060, which will be placed in a time capsule to be opened a half-century from now.

The Queen and Prince Philip will then meet with 100 war veterans and 150 cadets in the "Town Hall" section of the new terminal building as well as members of the Richardson and Lamb families, two trail-blazing clans of Manitoba’s aviation history. Student and senior volunteers with the WAA’s "Silver Wing" and "Gold Wing" programs and some invited members of the public will also be in attendance.

"There are a few other surprises, but I can’t give it all away," said Christine Alongi, director of communications and public affairs at the WAA.

The royal couple will spend approximately 30 minutes in the new terminal building before descending an escalator from the second floor to the first floor — they won’t have to wait for their luggage, some military personnel will attend to that — before getting in their motorcade to begin their whirlwind six-hour visit to Winnipeg.

Alongi said everything should run like clockwork, considering the Queen’s personal assistant and dressmaker toured the facility in March and the motorcade went through a dry run last week.

"We’ve had a lot of representatives from Buckingham Palace here over the last 31/2 months," she said.

Alongi was brief when asked about the security presence during the visit.

"Heavy," she said.

More than 500 workers continued the finishing work both inside and outside the 510,000-square-foot building on Monday. The interior, which was full of welders and concrete tradesmen just a few months ago, now bustles with painters, electricians and carpet layers.

Alongi said the WAA hasn’t picked an official ribbon-cutting date for the new terminal building but it’s still slated for a fourth-quarter opening this year. She said the recent three-week strike by plumbers didn’t help the timeline but the impact will be minimal.

The royal couple won’t be trying out the new terminal building’s unfinished departures lounge, however. The prime minister’s plane, on which they’ll travel while in Canada, will leave from 17 Wing Saturday evening.

geoff.kirbyson@freepress.mb.ca