Transport Canada is drafting regulations that could cost Prince George Airport as much as $3 million to add emergency stopping space.
That's a lot less than some other airports are facing - the bill could be in the tens of millions of dollars for Vancouver International Airport.
But Prince George Airport Authority chief executive officer John Gibson said he's nonetheless opposed to the regulations.
"We feel there are a lot more important things to spend $2 to $3 million on."
Major runways at Canada's airports require a graded, unobstructed buffer zone or "runway strip" extending 60 metres past the runway's end for last-ditch emergency stopping, and Transport Canada official say the department wants to increase that requirement to at least 150 metres of emergency stopping space.
The proposed move follows a warning last year from the Transportation Safety Board that runway excursions and other landing safety issues pose one of the country's greatest transportation risks and need urgent government and industry action.
The rate of overruns per million landings by large transport aircraft in Canada is almost twice the world average, and three times that of the United States. The figure jumps to four times the global average when the runway is wet.
In Canada, there were 46 overruns involving larger aircraft between 1989 and 2006, including 11 with significant aircraft damage and injuries, according to the TSB. In 2005, at Toronto's Pearson International Airport, an Air France airliner barrelled off a rain-slick runway and caught fire.
The proposed change would be in line with the International Civil Aviation Organization's minimum standard, but falls another 150 metres short of its recommended best practice, with which much of the rest of the world complies.
The runway at Prince George Airport is the third longest in Canada and conceivably, the airport could meet the standard by shortening the runway, but Gibson said that would be out of the question.
"We didn't invest money in a commercial runway to shorten our commercial capabilities," Gibson said and added there are other ways to meet the same goal.
"Put more money into making more precision landings, that would make more sense than it would be to lengthen the runway because the precision landings would probably benefit every landing," he said.
