Senior Airport Operations Manager at Kelowna International, Phillip Elchitz says travel is starting to rebound - up to about 80 percent of pre-covid travel numbers - that's 4 to 5 thousand people a day.
"For the last 18 months it's been very, very slow, so to see the terminal building full again, to see aircraft on the apron and to see the hustle and bustle of the busy airport was really exciting for us." Elchitz says.
He adds this is good news - but there's still a ways to go.
"Even though we believe we are going to stay at 80 percent now to the end of the year - it's still going to be several years until we get back to the pre-covid levels of about 2 million passengers per annum."
Elchitz says passengers are, for the most part co-operating with safety precautions still in place.
Masks are still mandatory in the airport and on planes.