Operation Yellow Ribbon
The airport's reputation as a premier gateway airport between Asia and North America was made evident during Operation Yellow Ribbon on September 11, 2001. With U.S. airspace closed as a result of the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, there was no choice for Vancouver International Airport but to take part in the operation since it was the only major Canadian airport on the West Coast of Canada that has the capability of handling large aircraft for trans-Pacific flights. The airport handled 34 flights—third highest total of flight that landed at a Canadian airport involved in the operation, behind Halifax and Gander—carrying 8,500 passengers—more passengers than any other Canadian airport—from Asia to destinations on the United States West Coast and points beyond.
The airport won the 2001 Airport Management Award from the B.C. Aviation Council and was cited for overcoming many challenges in a professional and compassionate way.
Read more about this topic: Vancouver International Airport
Famous quotes containing the words yellow ribbon, operation, yellow and/or ribbon:
“A yellow ribbon, Miss Dandridge. You know what that means in the cavalry—a sweetheart.”
—Frank S. Nugent (1908–1965)
“It requires a surgical operation to get a joke well into a Scotch understanding. The only idea of wit, or rather that inferior variety of the electric talent which prevails occasionally in the North, and which, under the name of “Wut,” is so infinitely distressing to people of good taste, is laughing immoderately at stated intervals.”
—Sydney Smith (1771–1845)
“Now the long-feared Asiatic colossus takes its turn as world leader, and we—the white race—have become the yellow man’s burden. Let us hope that he will treat us more kindly than we treated him.”
—Gore Vidal (b. 1925)
“For this your mother sweated in the cold,
For this you bled upon the bitter tree:
A yard of tinsel ribbon bought and sold;
A paper wreath; a day at home for me.”
—Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950)