It's the largest bird ever to land at Kelowna International Airport.

A DC10-30F, one of the largest aircraft in the world, arrived shortly after 2 p.m. Friday.

The arrival marked the opening of the airport's newly expanded runway.

The 1,600 foot, $8 million expansion, gives the airport 8,900 feet of runway, more than enough to accommodate the large transport plane, owned by Kelowna Flightcraft.

"This is one of the most exciting times I have ever had," says Flightcraft President and founder, Barry Lapointe.

I first flew into this airport with a little two-seater and now we've got a big DC10. It goes more than just Flightcraft, it goes to the vision that Kelowna has had to have the vision to make the airport what it is today."

Lapointe says it was a struggle at time for the airport to get to where it is, but he says he always believed it would get here some day.

"A runway, and I've said this a number of times, is a tool and you need the tools to make any kind of business successful. Here's an almost 600,000 pound airplane landing at the Kelowna Airport which would have never happened had we not had the people of Kelowna, the councillors and mayors have the vision to make this what it is."

The DC10 is more than 180 feet long with a wingspan of about 160 feet.

It's one of two such planes owned by Flightcraft which transports mail for Canada Post between Vancouver and Hamilton, Ontario.

The runway extension means larger planes can arrive non-stop from destinations as far away as England and Germany.

Lapointe says Kelowna shouldn't expect to see the big birds right away. He says it will take time.

"Who would have thought 40 or 50 years ago we would have had this airplane here, so maybe three or years from now we are going to see maybe direct service to Europe with the capacity of the airport now to handle it."