Tourism Winnipeg

It's the 25th anniversary of the Winnipeg Airports Authority (WAA) but Barry Rempel doesn't want any gifts of silver to commemorate the milestone. Instead, the outgoing President & CEO would prefer aluminum. You know, the stuff airplanes are made of. It's been a difficult two years for the WAA but Rempel has built up an organization over his two decades at the helm that has been able to withstand much of the impact of COVID-19 travel restrictions. He's the first to tell you he didn't do it alone and the first to credit the WAA's many partnerships. Things will all be a lot easier with the signing of a few more partnerships with carriers that include Winnipeg on their schedules again. What do partnerships mean to the WAA? Barry Rempel: To understand the partnership aspect, we have to go back to what's our 'why'? The WAA was created 25 years ago to serve this community. The airport had $28 million in revenue when I arrived and it's got just over $140 million now. One of the things I did when I got here was have an economic impact statement made. We looked at our total economic output and our total number of jobs. We used to have about 5,000 jobs that the airport was responsible for, now it's just shy of 19,000. All the new buildings and facilities that are here, I look at them as employment. A good example is the Standard Aero facility. None of this happened because the WAA did something. It happened because we partnered with others in the community for the benefit of the community. How has the WAA evolved its partnerships over the years? BR: It depends on the area. With Economic Development Winnipeg, for example, we're one of their top partners investing in YES! Winnipeg because of what they can do for our community. It's part of this circle. When you invest in your community, the community grows and then more people have INTERVIEW WITH BARRY REMPEL to travel, which benefits the airport, which allows us to invest in the community again. Why is it important for the WAA to be so present in the community? BR: It's really about why we're here to serve. We serve by running the best airport possible. The pandemic proved it. We didn't do well during the pandemic. Our traffic levels dropped. During the worst of days, we'd board 60 people. Our revenue is based entirely on the number of people we board. We found a way to make sure the airport stayed open 24-7. Without that, you can't get vaccines, PPE, fresh flowers, all the things you need. We took out an extra $100 million loan to tide us through this. Clearly, you can't tighten your belts by that much. If you have one plane or 100 planes landing, it costs the same to clear snow off the runway. We reached out to people like EDW and asked, "How can we work together to maintain our community's connectivity wherever possible? What are the rules around travel? What's the best way to keep people safe?" It's a small community and because we all know each other, we have to live with each other and work together so our community can benefit. How have community partnerships uncovered new business opportunities for the WAA? BR: We're working on trying to get the land to the west of the airport serviced. So, we're working with EDW to do economic impact studies to be able to put the business case forward efficiently to get that land serviced. That's absolutely crucial for our community. Partnerships with partners such as EDW are critical to advancing things that people don't even think about. Y E S ! W I N N I P E G I N V E S T O R S 30 THE WINNIPEG INVESTOR YES! WINNIPEG INVESTORS

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