High-flying resurfacing at Prince Rupert airport - Terus Construction

YCS Holdings Ltd, a subsidiary of Terus Construction Ltd (Colas Canada), resurfaced the runways at Prince Rupert airport, in the far west of British Columbia.

One of the key features of this project was the fact that the island airport can only be reached by plane or boat. Given the weight of the equipment to be transported, the subsidiary opted to use barges.

Numerous return trips were required between the mainland and the airport site to ship the 32,000 tons of aggregates needed for the project. The bitumen was moved by truck from northern Alberta, some 1,700 km away, while the asphalt mixes were produced on-site using a mobile plant.

As well as the logistical constraints, teams had to contend with another challenge: to avoid disruption to air traffic, they worked exclusively at night at maximum output before the runways reopened in the morning. A total of around fifty employees were mobilized for the operation.