Fuel shortage could hurt Iqaluit flyers

AARON SPITZER

IQALUIT — Iqaluit is almost out of av-gas.

A sudden shortage of the aviation fuel arose earlier this month when almost all of the present supply of av-gas was found to have gone bad.

The dwindling supply threatens to ground a number of local private and commercial planes, and could strand trans-polar pilots who stop in Iqaluit to refuel.

Jeff Mahoney, who owns Air Nunavut in Iqaluit, said he doesn’t want to idle his company’s av-gas burning Piper Navajo.

“It’s the most economical airplane around for charters,” Mahoney said. “We’re going to do everything to keep it going. We can’t afford to have it sit.”

But with fewer than 60 drums of the fuel left in town, Mahoney may soon have little choice.

Luckily for Nunavummiut, most aircraft don’t burn av-gas. The fuel is used in piston-engine planes, which are increasingly rare in Northern skies.

But Mahoney’s Navajo, along with airplanes owned by Kenn Borek Air Ltd. and two private Iqaluit pilots, depends on the fuel to stay in the sky.

Up until a few weeks ago, Iqaluit had plenty of av-gas — around 170,000 litres of it, stored in a bulk-fuel tank that’s been in town since the days of the U.S. Air Force.

“It’s the most economical airplane around for charters. We’re going to do everything to keep it going. We can’t afford to have it sit.”

— Jeff Mahoney, owner, Air Nunavut

But a routine test of the gas found it had gone bad — that it was “out of spec” — and thus could not be used.

Suddenly, Iqaluit’s av-gas stock was down to a reserve supply of 60 fuel drums: about 7,200 litres. It takes around one drum to fill the average airplane tank.

Susan Makpah, director of the Nunavut government’s Petroleum Products Division, said she’s exploring how much it would cost to fly 10 more drums to Iqaluit.

The extra cost would be passed on to the pilots, she said, but at least it would help tide them over until 390 more drums arrive on the summer sealift.

Meanwhile, foreign flyers who need av-gas are being forced to steer clear of Iqaluit.

That’s bad for the local economy, said Bert Rose, an Iqaluit pilot who owns a private Cessna 172.

Nunavut’s capital is often used as a refueling point for pilots passing from Europe to the west coast of the U.S. and Canada. In the course of a year, dozens of av-gas-burning planes drop in on Iqaluit.

Last month, Rose said, a pilot from Germany and another from New Mexico almost got stuck in town when they landed and discovered there was almost no fuel to be had.

Now, a “notice to airmen” has been sent out, informing incoming pilots that if they need av-gas, they’ll have to get it elsewhere.

When they do, said Rose, the money they would have brought to Iqaluit to pay for gas, food and lodging will go with them.

The av-gas shortage isn’t the only problem. Also causing headaches is the question of what to do with the vast supply of fuel that’s gone bad.

If it can’t be brought back into regulation — which seems unlikely — it will have to be burned off or shipped south, at significant expense.

And, with the changeover from bulk-fuel to drum-stock, Iqaluit will also now be forced to deal with empty gas drums, which become an environmental liability once they are drained of their fuel.