Vancouver Airport preparing for busiest ever day

Vancouver Airport (YVR) has revealed that it is expecting March 1st 2010 to be the busiest day in its history.

An additional 231,000 passengers are expected to use the airport during the period of the 2010 Winter Olympics, which will run from February 12th to 28th.

Some 39,000 people and more than 77,000 pieces of luggage are expected to depart Vancouver Airport on March 1st, the day after the event's closing ceremony.

A full-scale de-icing exercise was recently carried out on an Air Canada Boeing 767 to demonstrate the hub's new winter operations equipment.

Several other measures are being put in place to handle the rise in passenger traffic, including a two-fold increase in volunteers and operational programmes to deal with oversized baggage.

Jan Damnavits, a spokesperson for the Games' Vancouver Organising Committee, said: "As the official airport of the 2010 Winter Games, we're confident YVR is ready to help us host the world in less than 90 days' time.

"More than 6,500 athletes and officials from around the world will be part of the 2010 Winter Games, along with tens of thousands of spectators and media whose first experience with Canada's Games will be through the gates of YVR."

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