Nunavik airline launches Christmas shopping flight to Sept-Îles

Air Inuit will fly up to 45 passengers to Sept-Iles Dec.10 for a day-long shopping trip. Tickets cost $575 return, and no beneficiary discount applies. (PHOTO BY SARAH ROGERS)

Christmas shopping can be expensive, not to mention having to fly to another city to do it.

This year, Nunavik’s Air Inuit is offering a one-time charter to a southern destination so that Nunavimmiut can buy most of the gifts on their holiday list.

On Dec. 10, an Air Inuit Dash-8 can take up to 45 passengers for the day to Sept-Îles, a small Quebec city of 25,000 located on the north shore of the St. Lawrence River, still referred to as “Seven Islands” by some English-speakers in Quebec.

“While we were on our Air Inuit field trip, some people were asking, can Air Inuit come up with a shopping special to the South?” said the airline’s president, Pita Aatami.

Sept-Îles isn’t quite “the South,” Aatami noted, but the town of 25,000 has stores like Walmart, Canadian Tire and a shopping centre.

In terms of cost, it’s much cheaper for the airline to go to Sept-Îles than to a larger centre like Quebec City or Montreal.

The return flight costs $575, which includes transportation to and from the shopping mall. Each passenger can fill three boxes.

The flight leaves Kuujjuaq Dec. 10 at 7:30 a.m. and returns that same day at 8:15 p.m.

The airline already stops in Sept-Iles on its regular Côte-Nord (North Shore) scheduled flights that go to Schefferville and Quebec City.