It makes sense to have an aerospace school right at the airport, and that’s why Okanagan College and the owners of the KF Centre for Excellence are partnering to build a $22-million, 42,000-square-foot campus at Kelowna International Airport.
The teaching facility will have classrooms, workshops and hangar space where students can work on actual planes. The announcement, made the week of November 17-21, indicated construction will start in the spring of 2026 with the project to be completed and ready for students in September 2027.
The campus will be the home for Okanagan College’s three aircraft maintenance engineering programs — technician, structures and mechanical. These programs are currently offered in smaller Okanagan College facilities at both Kelowna and Vernon airports, but the addition of the new 42,000-square-foot campus will increase annual student capacity from 30 to 140 by 2028.
KF Centre for Excellence is owned by BPL Legacy Association, which is named after Barry Paul Lapointe, the founder and chairman of KF Aerospace (formerly known as Kelowna Flightcraft).
The company was started by Lapointe, a pilot, in 1970 as a one-man airplane maintenance and repair operation. Since then it has grown into a massive international aerospace company that does maintenance and retrofitting for Boeing, WestJet, Air Canada, United, Alaska Airlines, Air North, Sunwing, Icelandair and government and military clients.
Its KF Cargo division flies Purolator packages across the country; the Aeroflyer arm jets oil and gas workers up north and sports teams to wherever they’re going; and its 50-50 SkyAlyne partnership with CAE (Canadian Aviation Electronics) has billions of dollars worth of contracts to train pilots and aircrews and do plane maintenance for the Royal Canadian Air Force.
The bulk of the aircraft maintenance and retrofitting work is done at KF Aerospace’s headquarters and hangars, which are also located just north of the airport’s passenger terminal and across Airport Way from the KF Centre for Excellence.
With so much going on at KF Aerospace it is in constant need of aircraft maintenance technicians, aircraft structures engineers and aircraft mechanical engineers. That’s why it has partnered with Okanagan College for the three programs for years and KF Aerospace has hired many of the graduates into stable and good-paying jobs.
BPL Legacy Association is investing in $17 million of the capital construction costs and Okanagan College will rally government and community partners to raise the remaining $5 million needed for the total $22-million project. When finished, Okanagan College will operate the campus on a long-term lease.