Prince George’s direct flight connection with Mexico is coming back.
Starting Dec. 16, air travelers will be able to fly nonstop to Puerto Vallarta with weekly flights leaving from and arriving at Prince George Airport on Saturdays. The flight takes a little more than five hours.
“We’ve heard consistently from our community, from the entire region, for the past 3 1/2 years about when we’re going to get that service back,” said Prince George Airport Authority chief executive officer Gordon Duke.
“A lot of people from this area have time-shares of condos or camping spots down there that they can access and the ability to go direct really changes the equation. You don’t have the uncertainty about connecting a large hub and having Canada customs staff at this airport makes a huge difference. The facility is built with a Canada Border Services office and all of the facilities they need to effectively clear a flight.”
The Prince George-Puerto Vallarta service offered by WestJet stopped in March 2020 with the start of the pandemic and no commercial flights have followed that route ever since. WestJet took over the direct service three years after Air Transat introduced it to Prince George in 2005.
Duke said WestJet adjusted its schedule to restore the Prince George-Mexico service and the airline will be using a Boeing 737 with a passenger capacity of between 160 and 180 for its Puerto Vallarta flights.
“We’re one of the few regional airports that has that direct service going at this point,” said Duke.
“Now it’s up to us collectively to use the flight, and then we can grow from there and then we can add destinations once we’re a proven market. It’s been pretty tough for our industry coming out of the pandemic so I think there’s an appetite there that people will want to get away. It just adds more certainty to have that non-stop, direct service.”
Departing Saturday flights will leave at 1 p.m. PT, arriving in Puerto Vallarta at 8:21 p.m. PT. The return flight will leave Mexico at 8:20 a.m. and land in Prince George at 12:01 p.m.
The service will continue for 20 weeks, with the last flight out of Prince George leaving on April 20, 2024
Flights are now available to book online.
Prince George got back to direct international flights last fall when Flair Airlines introduced weekly flights to Tucson, Ariz., Duke says while the Flair schedule has not yet been confirmed it’s not likely those flights out of YXS will resume this year.
