John Curran
Northern News Services
Published Monday, June 9, 2008

SANIKILUAQ - A new scheduled flight service introduced to the southern-most community in Nunavut has residents raving about their improved ease of travel.

Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday a Kivalliq Air flight takes off from Winnipeg at 9 a.m. and arrives in Sanikiluaq at about 1 p.m. At 2 p.m., it turns around and lands back in the Manitoba capital by 4 p.m.

The one-hour time difference notwithstanding, Annie Amitook said it's great to be able to get to Winnipeg in three hours.

"It started on April 1. What a great thing for us," she said. "There are many people taking advantage of it."

Most of the flights have been full and many people are taking advantage of the one-way, stand-by fare of $460, she added.

The new service has meant greatly improved connections for people travelling out of medical necessity, said Lucassie Arragutainaq, also from the Belcher Island community of about 740.

"It's better for people when they're coming home from a medical appointment," he said. "Kivalliq Air now has the medical flight contract, so with both, people can always get home quickly."

Before the scheduled service was added, charter flights were the only means of returning passengers straight to Sanikiluaq.

"They used to cancel the charter if there weren't enough people," he said. "People would end up having to wait in Winnipeg for three or four days until there were enough people booked on the charter."

The situation was terrible, said Amitook, adding it forced people to hope more friends, relatives and neighbours would require a trip to the hospital.

"That wasn't good at all," she said.