First Air starts Baker-Rankin route

Airline competition heats up in Kivalliq region

By JANE GEORGE

If you have $999 in your pocket, you can now buy a round-trip ticket beween Baker Lake and Winnipeg.

And starting March 16, you can even choose between two airlines for this bargain-basement ticket price – Calm Air or First Air.

First Air announced March 3 that it will link Baker Lake to its jet service from Rankin Inlet to Winnipeg, which resumed March 2.

First Air pulled the plug on its Rankin Inlet-Winnipeg jet passenger route last September, about four months after the Government of Nunavut awarded three-year medical travel contracts to Kivalliq Air and Canadian North for the Kivalliq region.

Canadian North's portion was presented and contracted as service from Calm Air, leaving First Air with no Kivalliq medical travel work, worth at least $10 million a year.

When Kivalliq mayors met Feb. 10 with Norm Hatlevik, the government's executive director of health for the Kivalliq region, they learned the GN plans to review medical travel in the Kivalliq, due to complaints in the region.

At the same meeting, Canadian North managers told mayors the airline is looking at providing jet service to the region.

But as it stands now, Canadian North doesn't think the Rankin Inlet-Winnipeg route can support two jet ­services.

Carmen Loberg, president and CEO of Norterra, which owns Canadian North, said Canadian North will get into the market when it makes business sense.

"We're going to keep on monitoring that Kivalliq-Manitoba corridor to see what the market looks like," Loberg said.

"We're puzzled as to how First Air could have found it untenable a few months ago and now, all of a sudden, it's an area for expansion. It doesn't make any sense, so we're very curious about what their motivation is."

The key to First Air's renewed interest in the Kivalliq may be the issuance of a request for proposals from the federal government for food mail services in the region, keeping Winnipeg as a staging point for food mail.

The argument that First Air decided to boost its Kivalliq routes due to mining activity falls short, because most mines prefer to ship their supplies by sealift and bring in their workers on chartered aircraft.

Meadowbank flies workers to its mine near Baker Lake via charters from Val d'Or in Quebec.

First Air's five-day-a-week scheduled service between Rankin Inlet and Baker Lake starts March 16.

Unaalik Aviation will operate this service for First Air, connecting directly to Rankin Inlet-Winnipeg jet service.

This means if you want to travel March 18, you could catch First Air's flight from Baker Lake, which leaves at 11:45 am, using Unaalik Aviation's 15-seat Beech 99 aircraft.

After a stop in Rankin Inlet, you can catch the jet to Winnipeg, arriving there at 16:08 pm.

Or you can travel on Calm Air's combi-ATR, which leaves Baker Lake at 5:20 pm, and arrives in Winnipeg at 10 pm, after a stop in Rankin Inlet.

The flight time from Baker Lake to Winnipeg ends up about the same on each airline, although paying travelers may prefer the comfort of First Air's larger jet and the chance to use frequent flyer points.

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