SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
While it’s only been three months since Air North launched its Yellowknife-to-Ottawa flight, it's bleeding money on the route with planes barely reaching full capacity, the company says.

Three months into its new Yellowknife-to-Ottawa route, Yukon-based Air North is considering whether to pull the plug due to low ticket sales. - photo courtesy of Air North

Due to the challenges of putting travellers in the seats, a stalled partnership with First Air and territorial government restrictions on who employees can fly with, the company plans to re-evaluate the flight later this year, said Allan Moore, the Yukon-based airline's director of commercial development.

“It’s sub-optimal at this point,” said Moore. “The flights are half full or less than half full. In three months we’ve had one flight that has paid for itself.”

While Moore wouldn’t discuss specific numbers on capacity levels on the three-day-a-week flight the total number of travellers making the trip to Ottawa through other carriers is much higher than what Air North has seen in bookings.

“It’s really not showing in the numbers,” said Moore. “We will re-evalute the route. We’re looking at a fair summer and we’ll likely break even. It’s one of the worst performing flights we’ve got at the moment.”

A number of issues have made it difficult for Air North to tap into the market. Included in the issues is brand confusion due to similarities between the Air North and Canadian North names.

“You can’t just move into a market and expect everyone to know who you are, but as far as it goes it’s not an insurmountable problem and it’s not going to happen overnight,” said Moore.

Business travellers who are unwilling at times to give up the per diem to take a four-hour flight to their final destination rather than making an overnight stop has also caused challenges, added Moore.

“Why jump on a flight to Ottawa when you wouldn’t get a per diem when you can spend a night in Vancouver or Edmonton and then go the next day to Ottawa?” he said. “In our flight, you get on in Yellowknife and go to Ottawa. Some people love the convenience, others say, ‘why would I fly that way?’”

Moore said another issue that’s limited the number of travellers on Air North is GNWT's restrictions on who its employees can fly with. The government’s employee policy when booking airfare is Northern carriers must be utilized first, meaning First Air and Canadian North. Only when scheduling issues arise or Northern carriers don’t offer cost-effective options, can an alternative carrier be used, according to government expense policies.

“We’ve had a big push to be recognized by the GNWT to allow employees to fly with us where they were restricted to Northern airlines,” said Moore, adding they’ve had some resolution to the issue in March.

“To be honest we’re the true northern airline based in the North. The others fly in the North but aren’t located here.”

Moore said he reads every comment card passengers fill out, and he said the amount of positive feedback on the Yellowknife-to-Ottawa route, despite low numbers, shows that it’s having an impact on people.

“The big thing is if I’m reading through them … I read thank yous for being able to make it in four hours,” he said. “There is a lot to it and it is encouraging. They plead to keep the flight and it’s amazing to see that.”