As one of Canada's major airports and a natural hub for people travelling from North America to Asia, the Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»International Airport (YVR) sees a lot.
In 2024, it returned to pre-pandemic levels, and even passed them (in part thanks to Taylor Swift) as more than 10.75 million passengers were screened at the airport.
And 2025 is looking to keep that momentum, as January, February, and March 2025 each recorded higher numbers of passengers than the year previous.
That's enough math, though. Here are some other (and more fun) facts about YVR.
1. It is home to the largest private collection of Disney figurines in an airport
It might seem like Hollywood should hold this record, or maybe somewhere with a Disney theme park. But no, Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»(currently) holds the record, thanks to Ken Stephens and his Disney memorabilia.
The collection, visible on the domestic side of YVR, is the .
When his company was working on the airport's art program, he saw the open cases, and offered up his collection to fill them.
It was supposed to be temporary, but the collection has been there since 2016.
Given the number of passengers from around Vancouver, Canada, and the world, the lost and found at YVR has held on to some interesting things.
"The most memorable items turned into Lost and Found include a snake preserved in a glass jar and the head of a full-size vacuum cleaner (which someone claimed)," airport spokesperson Reena Gacad Kirkpatrick tells V.I.A. in an email.
There are plenty more items that aren't as memorable; each month, 2,000 items are collected, including 240 laptops.
Items that are unclaimed after more than 30 days are donated or recycled.
3. Recycled table tops
The recently expanded Pier D at the airport has some unusual tabletops.
On average, the airport collects 19,000 chopsticks a month. Instead of sending them to a landfill, they're cleaned and reused by , a local company making things out of discarded chopsticks.
Some of those things are tabletops,
4. There's a for international flyers
Tucked in near Gate D67 is a quiet area that's set aside for relaxing; it includes a stretching mat for people interested in a bit of yoga while at the airport.
Another area of calm at the busy airport , an interfaith space located in the arrivals area.
5. to the whole world
There are non-stop flights to destinations from Auckland to Zurich, but you won't be able to fly directly to Argentina or Zimbabwe, or any of those countries' neighbours.
Currently, non-stop flights from Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»don't make it south of the equator too often, with no direct flights to South America or Africa.
While direct flights are convenient, much of North America is between Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»and those continents, so there are plenty of places to transfer to a different plane. And given the closest part of Africa (northern Morocco) is around 8,700 km away, direct flights would be among the longest from Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»(although Singapore is almost 13,000 km away).
