Air Labrador kills Iqaluit service

Air Labrador has abruptly terminated its popular Nunavut-Newfoundland scheduled service, forcing disgruntled ticket-holders to book flights on other airlines.

Their last Nunavut-Newfoundland flight will depart Iqaluit April 24.

Chris McCarthy, a teacher in Arctic Bay who last month booked a return flight to St. John’s with Air Labrador for a summer vacation starting in June, found out just last Thursday that the airline can’t honour his.

In a terse e-mail, the airline told McCarthy they’ve discontinued their Iqaluit-St. John’s service. They advised him to use First Air and Air Canada instead, and offered him a refund.

“There wasn’t really much in the way of explanation. There was no ‘we’re sorry,’ or no reason given. They did give me a return call today, but I was in no mood to speak,” McCarthy said.

“I felt that I was trying to support them by giving them my business, and I was hoping there would be more competition in the North between airlines, but it doesn’t seem like it’s anything that’s going to happen for a while. I just see it as a competition thing, the convenience of being able to go directly to Newfoundland from Nunavut.” McCarthy said.

Air Labrador began serving Iqaluit on March 1, 2003 with a weekly service that ran every Saturday, connecting Nunavut with Labrador and the island of Newfoundland.

Using an 18-seat Beech 1900D aircraft, the service ran from Iqaluit through Goose Bay and Stephenville to St. John’s and back.

Ward Pike, Air Labrador’s vice-president of marketing and sales, called the cancellation a “temporary suspension,” but he couldn’t say when the service would resume.

“It is our desire to do it again some time in the future, to provide a service between Newfoundland-Labrador and Nunavut, but right now is just not the right time,” Pike said.

Pike said the airline spent four times more money running the service than it recieved in revenue.

“It’s Business 101. There was not enough revenue from either passengers or cargo,” Pike said.

“We’re completing their travel either by providing flights for them, in the case of our flights, to carry out any obligations that we have, including passage on another carrier. In the case of Aeroplan, that’s their business,” Pike said.

As of Oct. 31, 2003, Air Labrador flights ceased being eligible for Aeroplan points.

Pike also said that the use of a bigger aircraft with more cargo and passenger capacity on the Iqaluit-St. John’s route wouldn’t have made much of a difference.

“In any business, when you develop a market, you start with one product and then move up to a bigger product in time. That’s normal in any business,” Pike said.

For business groups and government officials in Nunavut and Labrador who have been attempting to develop closer ties between the two regions, the demise of the Air Labrador route is a setback – but not a disaster.

“We’re disappointed, but not discouraged. We’ve known for some time that the company was thinking of pulling out,” says Steve Cook, president of the Baffin Regional Chamber of Commerce.

In Cook’s opinion, the route failed because the airline made little effort to develop a market in Iqaluit.

“The company just didn’t seem to be willing to invest in marketing and establishing a presence in Iqaluit,” Cook said.

And he still believes there’s “still believes there’s lots of potential” in a route connecting Iqaluit with Labrador and Newfoundland.

To that end, the Baffin chamber is now talking to “other parties” about finding another airline to service the route.

Last year, Cook, along with a large Nunavut delegation that included business people and representives from the City of Iqaluit and the Government of Nunavut attend the “Voisey’s Bay and Beyond Conference,” an annual event organized by the Labrador North Chamber of Commerce.

This month, a 32-member delegation from Labrador will hire a charter flight to attend the Baffin chamber’s Nunavut Trade Show in Iqaluit, to be held May 4 to May 6. Since last year, the Baffin chamber is already providing their North Labrador counterparts with office space in Iqaluit.

And this June, another Nunavut delegation will fly down to Goose Bay for this year’s “Voisey’s Bay and Beyond Conference,” scheduled for June 21 and June 22.

These exchanges are faciliated through “NorthLink,” the Northern Trade Development Centre in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, which seeks to link Labrador with the circumpolar world

“The ties are continuing,” Cook says.