Air Inuit’s upgraded freighter aircraft makes first cargo delivery
B737-800 NG has been customized to deliver essential freight; 2 more due in 2025 for freight, passenger service
An Air Inuit B737-800 NG plane arrives in Kuujjuaq on Tuesday. (Photo courtesy of CNW Group/Air Inuit)
The first of Air Inuit’s three newly acquired Boeing Next-Generation 737-800 aircraft completed its first delivery of essential cargo at the Kuujjuaq airport on Tuesday.
The company acquired the planes in 2023 as part of its fleet modernization program. They will replace the older B737-200s that service communities across Nunavik.
With greater fuel efficiency and passenger capacity, Air Inuit expects the B737-800s to reduce the company’s carbon emissions by 40 per cent, according to a news release Air Inuit issued Tuesday.
The first B737-800 will serve exclusively as a freighter aircraft with a 23,000-kilogram capacity.
Scheduled to go into service in 2025, the other two B737-800s will provide both passenger and freight service.
Air Inuit, a member of the Northern Air Transport Association, was among the airlines that raised the need to improve airport runways in the North at a NATA meeting in 2023.
Gravel runways found in many northern community airports do not accommodate modern aircraft like the B737-800 NG.
“We might be one of the last countries in the world that is depending this much on gravel runways,” said Sebastian Michel, director of flight operations for Air Inuit, last year.
“If there’s no investment in runways, some communities will simply lose [them].”
For now, Air Inuit’s B737-800 NG will operate primarily between Montreal and Air Inuit’s cargo hubs in Kuujjuaq and La Grande, Que.
Air Inuit employs more than 1,175 people and has a fleet of 36 aircraft, according to Tuesday’s release.
It’s nice to see air Inuit grow. Seems like yesterday they did the first fly over with the 737.
It was 15 years ago…
Nice to see slightly more modern planes in a fleet. I often wonder how long the old dinosaurs flying out of Rankin can last.
This may be new to Air Inuit, but it is not a new aircraft. Boeing produced them from 1998 – 2019.
It has been superseded by the 737-900 series and the 737-MAX series.
New compared to the 748s, and 727s in use when I first came north.
For reference, DB Cooper hijacked a 727 (successfully due to the design of the 727!), in 1971. Aircraft that are longer in the tooth aren’t a new thing for the north.
Canadian North Can end its Montreal -Kuujjuaq service after Air Inuit revive there 737-800Combi
So Canadian North can serve Montreal-Iqaluit direct, it’s time for Canadian North to end its Nunavik service , get Air Inuit to serve Kuujjuaq -Iqaluit instead.
Too simple , not going to work.
The 737-200s were great aircraft, and for decades they were my favorite aircraft to work on, but it is time for them to be replaced.
Air Inuit has some great people, with great minds that are making some really good decisions. Is it possible that someday Air Inuit may completely replace the failing Air North?
Air Inuit’s 737-8LD(SF)(WL) Registration C-FTUZ Serial Number 40885 (Line # 4279) was originally delivered in December of 2012, so it is nominally 11.6 years old and still has lots of life in her.
The aircraft have a pretty thorough heavy check, modernization, and transition check along with the cargo conversion, so the reliability should be comparable to a newly delivered aircraft.
I don’t spend much time in Nunavik, and have been mostly in Yellowknife for the past few years, so I don’t have that much contact with Air Inuit, but it can be a humiliating, dehumanizing, and absolutely soul destroying experience to work with dysfunctional and failing airlines like Canadian North, so it is refreshing to see airlines that have hired the right people who are capable of making the right decisions.
Some of Canadian North’s 737 heavy checks in Windsor and Ottawa have revealed plenty of corrosion and cracking, but bad things happen to badly managed companies, so that is no surprise.
This aircraft is newer than much of the Air Canada or Westjet fleet, and having seen it up close I can verify that during the transition check, modernization, and cargo conversion the investment was made to make this aircraft “as good as new”.
Buffalo is somehow still operating its WWII C-46 and C-47 fleet, but pressurized aircraft do not have seemingly unlimited airframe fatigue life, so there comes a point when the older 737s are effectively beyond economical repair.
I hope that Air Inuit can continue to expand so that it can replace the incapable, incompetent, and uneconomical failing airlines that refuse to adopt modern operating practices.
Canadian North, Calmair, take note of AIrInuits progress, forward thinking company, stop sucking revenue out of Nunavut to buy all the small airlines and competition up. Reinvest in the north stop paying all the lawyer investors high dividend payments and bonuses, keep sticking it to Nunavut, it will come back at you soon