The Vancouver Sun reports in its Wednesday edition that Vancouver airport vows it will be better prepared this winter to handle storms on short notice, unlike the mess experienced when a Dec. 19 snowstorm battered the Lower Mainland. The Sun's Derrick Penner quotes Tamara Vrooman, YVR's chief executive officer, saying, "What last year taught us is that we have to prepare for what we previously would have called 'unique events' to be more frequent." On Tuesday, the airport unveiled a $40-million set of improvements aimed at avoiding a repeat of the 2022 holiday disaster. The Dec. 19 storm dumped 27 centimetres of snow on its runways in a short period, forcing the cancellation of hundreds of flights and leaving passengers stranded for hours on planes unable to get to gates. The airport faced criticism for being unable to handle a winter storm that was forecast to happen and Ms. Vrooman said that an after-action review commissioned by the airport highlighted measures they needed to take to "build resiliency into our operations." Among the improvements, YVR has hired 16 more maintenance staff and 19 new pieces of snow-clearing equipment and increased the number of plane bridge and apron crews to handle problems.