Two stops in Penticton are included on the schedule of a new shuttle service between Osoyoos and the Kelowna airport.
The service, which offers four round-trips daily, launched Monday after months of planning by the South Okanagan Chamber of Commerce.
Although the chamber doesn’t operate the service, it did work with local governments in the region to come up with a promotional budget and invite private companies to bid to obtain access to the funds. Let’s Go Transportation, which already ran airport shuttles in the Kelowna area, was then selected to put rubber to the road.
“Basically, once it’s set up now, it’s in private hands,” said chamber president Myers Bennett.
The company is running the service with a pair of 15-seat passenger vans.
“We’re doing great. We’re getting a lot of requests,” said Fabio Santana, who co-owns Let’s Go Transportation with his wife, Birgit.
“We’re starting to get inter-community (travel) as well, like a lot of people drop off in Oliver, in Penticton. We’ve got a little bit of everything,” said Santana, who didn’t have initial ridership data available Thursday.
The first trip of the day leaves Petro-Canada in Penticton at 4:10 a.m. and arrives at Kelowna airport at 5:50 a.m., following stops in Summerland, Peachland, West Kelowna and Kelowna. Other northbound trips from Penticton leave the airport here at 8:45 a.m., 1 p.m., 4:45 p.m. and 7:45 p.m., stop 20 minutes later at the Petro-Canada, and take two hours to reach the Kelowna airport.
Southbound trips from the Kelowna airport to Penticton leave at 8:30 a.m., 12:15 p.m., 3 p.m. and 8:40 p.m. A one-way trip between Penticton and Kelowna costs $30.
Travelling the full route from Osoyoos costs $45 and takes three hours and 15 minutes, with up to nine stops along the way.
Reservations are required and can be made online at www.letsgotransportation.ca or by calling 1-844-877-0101.
Full maps, schedules and fares are also available online.