Clearing the flight path
Calm Air makes big changes to improve Winnipeg to Kivalliq service
Darrell Greer
Northern News Services
Wednesday, March 9, 2016
RANKIN INLET/KIVALLIQ
Calm Air is taking huge strides in making its cargo service more streamlined and effective, said the airline's president Gary Bell in Rankin Inlet this past week.
Calm Air president Gary Bell displays one of the new cooler units at the airline's cargo facility in Rankin Inlet this past week. - Darrell Greer/NNSL photo |
Bell said the opening of the airline's new cargo area took longer than expected.
He said Calm Air had hoped to have the facility up and running in October but various construction, renovation and logistics issues delayed the opening until this past month.
"The logic of this building is when freight comes from Winnipeg on the 737, the pallets are built into Rankin only, and then everything but Rankin," said Bell.
"Northern, Co-op or personal freight bound for Rankin comes to this building to be sorted, and then it's delivered to the Northern and Co-op the same day and our personal customers are called and notified their package has arrived.
"So basically, the major changes have been to change the function of the building - they used to do a lot of equipment repair in here - and out front, we wanted the double-doors to make it easier for people to bring their packages in or out.
"We actually wanted the additional freezer-and-cooler units we've added to be outside, but the building technically falls under the airport, so we had to get four levels of approval ranging from Nav Canada to the town itself."
Bell said it has been reported that Calm Air took over First Air's cooler and freezer space but nothing could be further from the truth.
He said Calm Air outright owns one building using the units and the other is owned by M&T Enterprises.
"The freezer-and-cooler capacity has been improved by 500 per cent during the past three years, with a 60 per cent increase happening during the past month alone.
"They're not sexy but they don't have to be, because they work.
"In our cargo dispersal area, we have everything in sections based on community and route.
"Each destination has its own space, and we try to get Arviat and Baker Lake's out the same day because they have three flights a day, and everything else goes out on the morning flight the next day."
Calm Air also put $3.5 million into constructing a 19-unit crew house in Rankin.
Construction began in October and the crew house came online on Feb. 25.
The house reaffirms Calm Air's dedication to the Kivalliq.
Bell said the airline has been in the region for 38 years and it wants to be here for another 38 or more.
He said being committed to the region long term, the payback of the new building versus the cost of hotels is less than five years.
"If you're planning on being here another 38 years, and we definitely are, then the crew house is a no-brainer.
"When our deal with First Air happened, First Air had capacity issues, so it wanted to move out on June 1 and we weren't quite ready for it to happen that quickly.
"The deal closed on July 2, so then it was OK, we didn't expect it to happen this quickly, so let's scramble and do the best we can.
"You're talking about hiring 40 additional workers in Rankin and, as hard as those people were trying, there's a learning curve, especially with the logistics, and we knew we had to have additional management to help run those logistics and everything else."
Bell is proud of the team in Rankin, which includes system-wide director of cargo Cheryl Sommerfeld, assistant cargo managers Kate Joudry, Jennifer Deyarmond, Jerred Leiding, Nicolas Harman and Kyle Lowe, and Rankin Inlet cargo manager Erick David.
He said Calm Air has always been honest about struggling a bit after the deal with First Air was finalized.
He said the airline never hid from the fact it wasn't doing as good a job as it wanted to.
"There were a number of customers, especially in outlying stations, who said it isn't good enough to just be good if we're going to be the dominant provider here and we acknowledge that.
"Our goal is to build ourselves into the Fedex of the North, where people know where their stuff is and can count on that reliability.
"More weather affects us than they have in the south but people understand that and, as long as you can tell them where their stuff is and when it's getting to them, they're usually pretty good.
"We've come a long way in achieving that objective just in the past few months."
Bell said Rankin represents about 35 per cent of the cargo for the entire region.
He said Calm Air still moves roughly the same amount of cargo, but now it comes direct from Winnipeg without going to Churchill.
"Before, between Calm Air and First Air, it used to average about 4,000 pounds a day between Winnipeg and Rankin, but now it's about 35,000 pounds a day.
"We've seen volume increase by 25 per cent in individual freight in the past three months, as people realize they can get it the same day.
"We've also seen some product that used to come up from Ottawa around, or Edmonton around, now coming up through the middle.And, since before Christmas when we had the learning curve of our partner M&T and our own managers - then hit the staffing level we wanted, got everyone to a competency and training level we wanted, and added more individuals and management in Winnipeg - we've seen a large decrease in the number of customer complaints."
