Nunavut MLAs set for televised sit-down with airline bosses

Representatives from Canadian North, Calm Air and First Air will meet with the Nunavut MLAs’ full caucus in a televised session to be held the week of Jan. 25. (FILE PHOTO)

Representatives from the three biggest airlines serving Nunavut will sit down — on television — with MLAs next month to explain their unpopular codeshare arrangements.

The Legislative Assembly of Nunavut invited executives from Canadian North, Calm Air and First Air to appear before them at a special televised meeting of full caucus early next year, under a motion they passed Nov. 5.

That meeting is expected to occur during the week of Jan. 25.

“[The assembly] has identified a number of significant issues and concerns regarding the impact that the implementation of the codeshare agreements has had on service to Nunavut communities,” said Aggu MLA Paul Quassa, who made the motion.

Quassa’s motion said the meeting will be “televised for the benefit of all Nunavut.”

Although the airlines have answered questions in public forums before — most recently at general meetings of the Qikiqtani and Kitikmeot Inuit Associations — much of the codeshare debate has occurred behind closed doors.

“At the end of the day, we run a business,” First Air vice president Bert van der Stege told QIA delegates Oct. 8.

Nunavut’s departments of Health, Community and Government Services, as well as the City of Iqaluit, met last month with the Competition Bureau, a federal agency, to talk about the codeshare agreements.

But the Competition Bureau will not disclose what was said at those meetings, on the grounds that its reviews are conducted in confidence.

The January meeting with MLAs would be the highest profile meeting to date that is accessible to the public.

At the recent fall sitting of the legislative assembly, letters of response to the deputy minister of health, Colleen Stockley, and Nunavut Premier Peter Taptuna were tabled in the house.

The airlines defended their business arrangements and said that any disruptions in service since the codeshare agreements began in May have been caused by other circumstances.

Canadian North President Steve Hankirk, in his letter to Taptuna, said his airline experienced “an unusually large number of weather-related flight delays and cancellations throughout the Baffin” in August.

Pangnirtung experienced a 40 per cent cancellation rate for flights during that month alone, Hankirk said.

Hankirk also acknowledged glitches caused by a system update that mistakenly reported seats as having been sold when they were actually still available.

“We have now corrected this issue and our reservation system is again functioning properly,” Hankirk said his letter to Nunavut’s deputy minister of health.

“I want to assure you that the codeshare agreement has not affected our pricing. We continue to offer competitive passenger and cargo pricing in all markets we serve and price independently from First Air,” Hankirk also said.

The winter sitting of Nunavut’s legislative assembly is scheduled to begin Feb. 24.