First Air VP named head of new northern airline

First Air’s outgoing VP of customer and commercial operations, Chris Avery, is now the airline’s CEO and president, effective Oct. 1. Avery will remain CEO of the newly merged First Air-Canadian North airline once it’s established. (PHOTO COURTESY OF FIRST AIR)

There are few details on what a new northern airline merger might look like, but leadership at the new airline came into sharper focus this week.

First Air said goodbye to outgoing president and CEO Brock Friesen and welcomed Chris Avery, the airline’s vice president of customer and commercial operations, into the airline’s leading role.

Avery becomes president and CEO of the Makivik Corp.-owned airline effective Oct. 1, First Air announced in a news release the same day.

The airline, which just announced its merger with Inuvialuit Regional Corp.-owned Canadian North, said Avery will also serve as CEO of the new airline, once all regulatory approvals are in place.

Avery joined First Air in 2017, after working in senior management at Westjet, Alaska Airlines, Canadian Airlines International and Transat Holidays.

“We are embarking on a new era of northern aviation, and we would like to thank Brock Friesen for his five years of service to First Air as president and CEO,” said Makivik president Charlie Watt.

Following years of negotiation and failed merger talks, Makivik Corp. and the Inuvialuit Regional Corp., signed an agreement on Sept. 28 to merge the two, creating one “premier northern airline.”

The new airline is set to operate under Canadian North’s name, while using First Air’s livery, and would be headquartered in Ottawa.

The transaction to create the new airline is expected to take at least until the beginning of 2019; in the meantime, the two airlines will continue to operate independently.

The new venture has yet to announce details on how routes, schedules and staffing will be affected by the merger, but the partners are already pledging “better time-of-day options and better connectivity.”

In the interim, First Air has also expanded the role of its chairperson, Johnny Adams, by changing his title to executive chairman.

The airline did not say what that expanded role included or whether Adams would continue in that role with the newly merged airline.