Taking YVR from basic to brilliant
Airport chairman Graham Clarke steps down after overseeing its transformation

When Graham Clarke joined the newly created board overseeing Vancouver International Airport in 1992, it was a grossly overcrowded, government-run operation that featured utilitarian decor, a grim international arrivals gate, and a cafeteria that not only monopolized food services but served up a mediocre menu of exorbitantly priced gruel.

Today, YVR is one of North America's most inviting airports, with a host of quality restaurants, a striking decor that shouts "Welcome to B.C." at almost every turn, and a glowing reputation as one of the continent's main gateways to the Asia-Pacific.

Last year, it was named the top airport in North America for customer service by the International Air Transport Association.

Much of the credit goes to Clarke, who took over as chairman of the Vancouver Airport Authority in 1997 after it became Canada's first community-based airport authority under the provisions of a long-term lease with the government of Canada. He announced Thursday that he will be stepping down as chairman on June 10. The new chair will be announced on May 13.

The 66-year-old Clarke, who will continue as a YVR director and pursue other interests, believes his greatest achievement as chairman was steering the airport into a new age.

"The airport was a government bureaucracy [when I started]. Now it's a completely responsive market-driven, community-sensitive entity that focuses on the interests of its stakeholders, the citizens of the Lower Mainland and B.C., and the users — meaning the passengers of the airlines and the airlines themselves."

The 61-gate airport, with nearly 400 employees, now has three runways capable of handling the largest aircraft in the world, as well as more than 160 shops, services and restaurants.

It handled over 16 million passengers in 2009, provides direct service to 130 destinations throughout North America and around the world, and is served by about 70 airlines. It has no shareholders, and reinvests earnings into airport development and service improvements.

Clarke recalls that in the late 1980s when he started putting together pre-feasibility studies for taking the airport from a government entity to a private-sector model, it served 10 million passengers annually despite being designed for just three million.

"It was overcrowded [and] it was a product of government design — very utilitarian and constrained by all the limitations. The floor coverings were battleship linoleum."

Of the original restaurant, he added: "You paid through the nose for absolutely abysmal food. That was one of the first things we targeted. Our concession formula had to have street pricing, and the quality had to be first-rate," added Clarke, who noted that almost 50 per cent of the airport's revenue now comes from concessions.

"Our [mission] was to take it from a government facility to a fire-breathing private-sector model, structured as a corporation. And we went through a lot of expansion."

That expansion included a new runway, the opening of the Shell Aerocentre in 1993, the construction of the $250-million, 16-gate International Terminal Building in 1996, the $114-million east wing expansion of that terminal six years later, the multi-million-dollar upgrade of the Domestic Terminal Building, and the $40-million Airport Connector project — just in time for the closure of the airport on Sept. 11, 2001, when YVR safely landed 34 jumbo aircraft carrying 8,500 passengers.

Clarke, who knows a thing or two about emergencies having been aboard the Queen Of The North when it sank in 2006, recalls with pride how the airport handled the 9/11 emergency.

"We put out cots and people were sleeping in the terminals. We went from full operation to zero flights. Everything was on the ground. It was very eerie."

Clarke points to YVR's practice of acquiring community art to promote its image as B.C.'s gateway. "Our very first step was to acquire the Jade Canoe, the Spirit of Haida Gwaii [by Bill Reid]."

And those lengthy lineups of decades past? They're largely a thing of the past, said Clarke, citing the end of the 2010 Olympics when tens of thousands headed home. "Our biggest day in history was March 1, 2010. We handled 36,000 people in one day. And there was a conspicuous absence of lineups."

Clarke also said YVR remains a work in progress, with a future largely planted in the Asia-Pacific region.

YVR president and CEO Larry Berg said Clarke's leadership as chairman went a long way to keeping the airport closely connected to the community. "As someone who was actively involved in creating the YVR we know today, Graham has always worked to make sure we stay true to our vision of being both a gateway and a local airport authority."

Clarke, who lives in White Rock with his wife Anne Bancroft-Jones and has three grown children and six grandchildren, will continue to chair Vancouver Airport Services (YVRAS), a company owned jointly by Citi Infrastructure Investors and YVR. YVRAS manages a network of 18 airports around the world.

Clarke is also president and owner of the Clarke Group of Companies, which does business in the transportation, hospitality, marine and tourism sectors. He has served as director or chairman of numerous organizations and companies, including the Vancouver Board of Trade and Tourism Vancouver.

bmorton@vancouversun.com