Chrono Aviation prepares for Montreal-Iqaluit takeoff
Despite ‘slow’ ticket sales, arline vice-president says charter business model sustainable
Chrono Aviation president Vincent Gagnon, left, and vice-president Dany Gagnon stand in front of one of their jets in Iqaluit. The charter and cargo airline’s new passenger service from Montreal to Iqaluit takes off Aug. 6. (Photo by Jeff Pelletier)
For Chrono Aviation’s owners, opening a new passenger route between Iqaluit and Montreal isn’t necessarily about selling the most tickets.
Chrono’s passenger service between Montreal and Iqaluit is set to take off Aug. 6, with planes making the round trip twice a week.
President Vincent Gagnon and vice-president Dany Gagnon — who are not related, but founded Chrono and also own and pilot jets for it — said the decision to open the passenger route came from an opportunity and as a necessity.
Chrono is adding a Boeing 737-800 Next Generation passenger jet to its fleet for this route that is larger and more fuel-efficient than its aging 737-200 jets.
The older passenger planes are becoming “not reliable” due to maintenance costs, Dany Gagnon said in an interview.
Also, local authorities around the Montreal Metropolitan/St. Hubert Airport in Longueuil, Que., banned those jets from taking off at night due to noise concerns.
The airline is contracted by Baffinland Iron Mines Corp. to fly workers north from Montreal. Now that the airline will use the larger jet with a capacity for 187 passengers, compared to the old ones that can accommodate 120, there’s an opportunity to sell up to 80 more seats per flight.
“Instead of having empty seats, we were like, ‘Why don’t we just try to sell tickets and open a route from Montreal?’” Gagnon said.
This new arrangement means Baffinland is still contracting Chrono to fly its workers, but on those same flights Chrono can earn additional income by selling some tickets to the general public.
That makes the route’s sustainability less reliant on how many people decide to buy a ticket, he said.
“The mine is the client and we fly for them, so we decided to just open the seats, make it reasonable in terms of price, make it easy and simple for the passengers,” Gagnon said.
When Chrono announced the new flights, it promised a flat starting rate of $699 for a one-way trip, with no price surges.
By comparison, a Canadian North one-way flight from Iqaluit to the Montréal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport in August may cost between $899 to $1,994, with a stopover in Kuujjuaq, according to the company’s website.
Additionally, Chrono is promising a flat fee of $50 for a second checked bag, whereas Canadian North increased its extra bag price to $86.25 earlier this year.
Gagnon acknowledged sales so far have been “slow,” adding he’s heard potential customers say they are skeptical about another airline attempting to compete in the northern commercial airspace where others have failed.
Also, he said Chrono has not intensely marketed the service yet and it has had to build an online sales platform in just a few months.
However, he said, he’s confident the quality of the service, which he described as a “VIP experience,” will convince the public to buy in.
“If I have 10 [passengers] per flight, I’ll be very happy,” he said.
“Baffinland is paying the flight, so it’s sustainable without any seats sold on the aircraft.”
Chrono is still waiting to receive its new 737-800 so the first flights to Iqaluit will be on a jet rented from Sunwing.
The airline executives are hopeful about the future and for their operations at the St. Hubert airport, which is a 30-minute drive east of downtown Montreal.
They said Porter Airlines is building a new terminal next to theirs, which may eventually present the opportunity to connect Iqaluit to other destinations.
Since 90% of canadian north ticket sales are duty travel and medical travel they can charge what they want. Here’s an idea switch medical travel to Montreal instead of ottawa and use Chrono, GN will save tons on airfare alone!
Amd don’t forget Chrono 2nd 3rd 4th and 5th bag is only $50. Same would cost like $1000 with Canadian north! Let’s hope this competition makes canadian north rethink their practices. Buy tickets folks, don’t let this die off
Don’t forget the contractors and this might be a great opportunity to get more help from Montreal and surrounding area
Neither their plane configuration nor their service route can accommodate medical travel…there’s more to it than buying a ticket for people.
It reality there will probably be maximum limit pre costumer
Very good news for Iqaluit, 699.00 each way and piggy backing on that evil mining company, really hope it works for us, and if you want another cash cow chrono try the Winnipeg to Rankin run cheapest fare is through the roof , thank you will be booking
why is the mine evil? They employ so many eskimos! Im guessing you want us to keep taking handouts?
Good for Chrono! Good start, anyway. Canadian North’s fares are out of sight unreasonable. See, for example, what you can get by way of a week’s inclusive vacation in the Caribbean with return flight–for less than many a one-way ticked between Iqaluit and Ottawa. And it’s not even as if, after all these years since Inuit ownership from 1989, it actually has real Inuit management, pilots and engineers.
I have my first set of tickets.
Go Chrono!
Bring back old Nordair days routes and medical travel……
Poorly managed companies, suffering from weak leadership, like Canadian North are not sustainable once they face competition. I would love to see Canadian North succeed, but I cannot see the airline having any future at all as long as it does not value and respect its frontline employees, does not respect the traveling public, as long as it does not hire competent supervisors and managers, and does not hold decision makers accountable for their poor decisions and counterproductive actions.
Canadian North has continually failed the traveling public, and the people of the North deserve better. The current state of affairs is simply intolerable. Canadian North’s management is its own worst enemy, and we all suffer because of it.
I wish Chrono all the best. Perhaps this development will finally wake up the delusional fools and fakers at Canadian North who are clearly in over their heads in trying to run an airline. Change must come.
It is unbelievable how many employees refuse to honour baggage rules for tickets purchased before May 29.
Frequent, your right, but be careful what you wish for,Calmair based out of Winnipeg Manitoba, is talking about buying Canadian North, you think you have it tough now if it happens Wait.
Calm Air is just a front for Exchange Income Fund (EIC), which also owns Perimeter, PAL, Bearskin and Keewatin, as well as having an interest in Wasaya.
CN has pretty much been driven into the ground by the exact same negligence and incompetence that doomed First Air, so it will either collapse or be acquired. There simply is no future for such a dysfunctional and inefficient airline.
It may not be that long into the future when CN will be but a distant memory that will just be used by business schools as an example of how not to try to run an airline.
Thank you for clarifying that this is the Mary River flight. Deciding between Canadian North and Chronos is deciding what is less worse. Both suck.
How does this being the Mary River flight make it bad?
Go Chrono!, add ATR’s for Kivalliq region in the future.
Also Kitikmeot area pls, close to 9k for a family of 3 to Edmonton return trip with the only airline in the region which is Canadian North. Thank you for choosing the only airline you got! they says after buying the tickets.
While Polaris Mine was running, Resolute Bay benefited with jet service from a number of companies including Canadian Airlines, PWA and Nordair. Today, Resolute Bay now gets an ATR 5 per week, and 4 per week from Iqaluit. It is common to have multi-day layovers to get there from major Canadian centers.
While Nanisivik Mine was running, Arctic Bay also benefited with jet service from some of these same companies, including First Air. These flights had the added benefit of linking Yellowknife and Iqaluit. Today, Arctic Bay has almost identical, (and reduced) flight connections as Resolute Bay.
Chronos Aviation offering seats to Iqaluit is not a new or special thing. It is a natural and direct consequence of having an actual private sector economy in the territory based on natural resources that brings in new money and activity.
Induced benefits like this should not be discounted, ignored or forgotten.
I am looking forward to being able to get closer to home with this iqaluit to Montreal flight and the cost is cheaper. I am from Labrador and in order for me to get home, I will be flying from iqaluit to Montreal, Montreal to Wabush and Wabush to Goose Bay 5 hour drive but it still costs cheaper then going with Canadian North. Looking forward to these flights starting up.
This great for the people of Iqaluit , I’m somewhat surprised if was the mine and I was paying the whole cost of the jet and Chrono turn around and told me they planned on selling the Extra seat I would have said like fuck you are unless I get a discount
Perhaps think they good wil it will generate for the project is worth it
So leasing another aircraft from another airline to replace their own aircraft will not increase their cost and they will break even with only 10 tickets? Probably Arctic Coop financing this dream project. No wonder food is so costly.
so the first 2 flight have had 4 or 5 people. It is nice to have all the hype but people aren’t actually buying tickets. I still don’t understand all the hype.
If you want to leave St-Hubert at 2am go right ahead. You might not like the legacy carrier but you can still get $500 tickets to and from Ottawa if you plan in advance.
Canadian North’s route from Iqaluit to Montreal is just to maintain a connection with the ownerships home base. It is one that Canadian North loses money on. It is silly to compare the price as they want to pack Kuujjuaq to Montreal.
Good Luck but right now its not worth paying the security screening based on the passenger loads.