ACL builds on Canadian North air freight deal

Arctic Co-op Ltd. freight, some of which will continue on to other Nunavut communities, arrives May 4 at the Iqaluit airport. (PHOTO BY SAMANTHA DAWSON)

Through a new arrangement with Canadian North, Arctic Cooperatives Ltd. has made big changes to the way it ships food and other cargo to member co-ops in the Baffin region as well as to the ACL-owned Arctic Ventures Marketplace in Iqaluit.

In what the ACL called “an exciting strategic move,” a new Winnipeg-based service will offer a “cost-effective delivery” for the stores, through a deal with the Canadian North, Cargojet and Calm Air airlines, a May 1 news release said.

Through the new arrangement, Cargojet and Calm Air will deliver weekly freight to most co-ops in the Baffin region, including Resolute Bay and Arctic Bay.

Duane Wilson, ACL’s vice-president for merchandising and logistics, welcomed the arrival of ACL food freight on a Boeing 767 Cargojet super-freighter aircraft at the Canadian North cargo building in Iqaluit May 4.

The deal with Canadian North, Cargojet and Calm Air allows ACL to offer better flight delivery to Iqaluit and the communities, Wilson said.

“We’ve more or less been living with the handcuffs of the old food mail program…we’ve now been unshackled,” he said.

Prior to the launch of Nutrition North in 2011, food mail cargo had to be routed to the Baffin region and Iqaluit via Val d’Or in northern Quebec.

After Nutrition North was came into effect April 1, 2011, Canadian North introduced 25 new flights, mostly in the Baffin region, and airline freight patterns slowly began to change to flights originating in other locations..

At the same time, ACL began using Canadian North to ship its cargo.

Arctic co-ops now have more control over freight, and can use the “most logical departure points,” Wilson said.

That’s because the ACL is now “unburdened from pre-existing airline contracts,” which were inherited with the acquisition of Arctic Ventures in Iqaluit, he said.

Following its acquisition of Arctic Ventures this past fall, ACL started to use Canadian North, to supply that store instead of First Air.

In mid-2012, the North West Co., which still uses First Air, also began shipping cargo to Baffin Island from Winnipeg.

Canadian North is a subsidiary of the Norterra group is owned 50-50 by the Inuit of Nunavut through Nunasi Corp. and the Inuvialuit of the Northwest Territories through the Inuvialuit Development Corp., while First Air is owned by the Inuit of Nunavik through Makivik Corp..