Glen Korstrom
Northern News Services

NNSL (Apr 09/99) - When Tony Szekely was nine years old, he read and translated flight books for a cousin who had immigrated to Canada from Hungary.

Little by little, the reading tweaked his interest and after he finished high school he worked at construction jobs to pay for expensive flight training from the summer of 1996 to February, 1998.

The Calgary native got his break eight months ago when the Kenn Borek company, which owns 49 per cent of Aklak Air, hired him.

"The day I got hired they said, 'You're leaving for Inuvik tomorrow.' So I went home and looked at Inuvik on the map," says Szekely who would like to see as much of the world as he can.

"Kenn Borek is worldwide so I'm here now but anytime they call, I could go to the South Pole or the Far East. I'd go anywhere but for now I'm happy here. The people at work are great to work with."

Since the Inuvialuit Development Corporation owns 51 per cent of Aklak Air, the company's flights tend to focus within the Inuvialuit Settlement Region.

Earlier this month, regularly scheduled flights to Holman started as an extension to the regular Paulatuk runs but weekday flights to Tuk are still the most common Aklak flight.

Until now, Szekely's main memory of Holman is when a hinge wore out on a door and the landing gear went up incorrectly, forcing him to spend an hour and a half working on it on a freezing dark December night.

"It's hard work. I'm not saying I don't like it but it's hard work," he says of a job many may see as glamorous.

"The way I look at it is I get paid to load the airplane and I fly for free."

So far, Szekely has been flying Beech 99 planes, which hold 14 people, though he is finishing training on the twin otter which he hopes to be flying by summer.

Otherwise, there is likely going to be a survival course sometime this month where a couple of pilots will touch down on a frozen lake somewhere between Inuvik and Paulatuk and camp for a few days.

The training is meant to develop skills that would be needed if anything happens to a plane and the pilots have to make an emergency landing.

Outside of work, Szekely is interested in photography.

And since he gets many weekends off and discount flights through Canadian Airlines, he often visits friends in Yellowknife.