Nowadays everyone takes flights, even the people, who are afraid of planes, still fly because it is the safest and fastest way to travel.
Winnipeg James Armstrong Richardson International Airport is the seventh busiest airport in Canada by passenger traffic, serving 4,305,744 passengers in 2017, and the 11th busiest airport by aircraft movements.
The reconstruction of one of two runways at Winnipeg’s airport this summer means the area under one flight path over the city will see a drop in air traffic, while another will see an increase.
The Winnipeg Airports Authority said the runway rehabilitation is expected to be complete by September and won’t lead to a reduction in service. During construction, all flights will use the airport’s other runway and the corresponding flight path will be busier.
Also, Winnipeg Airport is the first in North America to use the unmanned snow plow machine, called Otto. Otto does not require a driver to move and do the job. It was developed by Northstar Robotics together with engineers from the Airport Technologies.
In the next few years, the novelty will be used for cleaning the runway at the local airport, including the time of extreme weather conditions, when regular worker and human controlled snow clearing equipment is not working.
The Otto snow plow is capable of moving along pre-set coordinates in the GPS system. It is equipped with several sensors and lidars that track the location of objects near the new model. When there is a risk of a collision, the machine stops, and then, when nothing interferes with the planned course of travel, it resumes movement along a predetermined trajectory. At the same time, the Otto model is equipped with a control switch to manual mode and back.
Sean Scherer, the President, and Founder of Northstar Robotics said that his company looks forward to working with the Winnipeg Airport Authority and Airport Technologies, which were the first in North America to apply this technology for snow removal at the airports.