Kirsten Murphy
Northern News Services

Iqaluit (July 16/01) - Sold-out summer flights mean medical travel passengers on airline waiting lists may spend up to a week in Iqaluit before returning to Grise Fiord, Resolute Bay or Nanisivik.

An unimpressed Ken Powder waited a week before getting a flight home to Grise Fiord earlier this month. - Kirsten Murphy/NNSL photo

Jim Ballingall, First Air's vice-president of marketing, said summer is one of the busiest seasons. He called the delays isolated and said no new flights would be added, even though Kenn Borek has cancelled its Resolute Bay and Nanisivik runs.

First Air is contracted by the territorial Health Department to transport people in and out of communities for non-threatening medical treatment.

Grise Fiord resident Ken Powder called the delays on-going and unacceptable.

"They talk about wait lists, I say I was bumped," Powder said last week.

He and almost a dozen people waited a week before getting flights home earlier this month.

Wayne Govereau, policy and planning director for the department, said the twice-weekly flights to High Arctic communities limit travel options. One-way tickets raise another potential problem.

"When people come here for treatment or appointments we don't know when they'll be able to go back so they might not have return tickets," said Govereau.

"Consequently, when it's time for them to go home seats may be bought up by tourists."

The delays are not news, said Jim Taylor, general manager of the Elders Society, which operates the 40-bed Tammaativvik boarding home in Iqaluit.

Taylor said last week's backlog of six or 10 people was an oddity in terms of volume. However, by no means was it the first time someone was bumped from a flight home, he said. Nor was it a strain on the home's resources.

"It's hard on people anxious to get home and the people at home. It doesn't affect us one bit," Taylor said.

Approved private boarding homes take people in when Tammaativvik fills up -- which routinely occurs, he said.

Taylor called earlier reports of 14 people getting stranded in Iqaluit the first July weekend exaggerated. "I don't know how many exactly but wouldn't have said that many," he said.