Arctic Sunwest Charters president Marvin Robinson. - Norm Poole/NNSL photo |
But as RTL Robinson can attest, it doesn't always have to be written in red ink.
Back in the early 1980s, the construction and trucking giant sat down to figure out a way to keep its under-used airplanes busy.
The solution -- find a different line of work for them off-season -- has turned out rather better than anybody expected at the time, agrees a smiling president Marvin Robinson.
The company formed out of that idea, Arctic Sunwest Charters, owned by Robinson family shareholders, has since grown to become one of the largest air charter firms in the North.
The latest addition to the fleet, a 38-passenger Dash 8, was added last week.
The plane is contracted to BHP to move workers back and forth from the communities and the mine.
It replaces a smaller, 15-passenger plane in the role.
For that Robinson -- president of Arctic Sunwest as well -- tips a hat to BHP's "highly successful" worker training programs over the past several years.
"Every year, there have been more people from the communities working at the mine.
"Which for us meant going to a bigger plane to carry them."
It will also mean finding other work for the $6 million asset when it isn't in BHP service.
Planning for that, Arctic Sunwest equipped the plane with advanced avionics and extended-range fuel tanks (about 4,500 km).
The sophisticated plane is now available for charter "anywhere in the world," says Robinson.
And if he has his way, he'll fly it there.
Utilization strategy
Arctic Sunwest's approach with the Dash 8 won't vary much from any of the 40-odd planes the company has had in its fleet over the past 20 years.
The company started out with three planes, initially purchased by RTL to support the company's extensive trucking and construction activities.
RTL's construction arm specializes in roads, airstrips, and utility installations throughout NWT and Nunavut.
The firm employs up to 450 people during the peak construction season.
"We were busy at the time in places like Baker Lake, Coppermine and Spence Bay, Rankin Inlet and Fort McPherson," recalls Robinson.
"We were also doing a lot of work in Norman Wells and we needed an efficient way to get our crews in and out.
"We began flying our own planes because we couldn't look to the existing charter market to meet our needs."
That included mounting an emergency response program for its winter ice road operations.
But as Robinson observes, when the first plane became two and then three, the bills for the aviation side began mounting.
"We realized that our aircraft had a 60 per cent availability, meaning we were only using them 40 per cent of the time."
Looking for a solution, Robinson says the company observed that during market downturns, one of the first things the large oil and gas companies did to cut costs was sell off their air arms.
Rather than find themselves in the same boat, the company formed Arctic Sunwest, targeting the government and corporate market -- including the oil and gas companies.
There has been no looking back since.
The firm now runs 15 planes, five helicopters, and employs 70 people year-round.
The company plans to add a second Dash 8 in the near future.
Come the start of pipeline construction, the company plans to be "well positioned to serve that market," says Robinson.