West Coast Connector

The smell of Kentucky Fried Chicken was pervasive. It wafted throughout the cabin of the Beechcraft King Air 100, en route from Vancouver to the remote First Nation community of Bella Bella, located on Campbell Island along British Columbia’s central coast. With a population of 1,400, the town is accessible only by air and seasonal BC Ferries service. Fast food outlets and the trappings of urban life are non-existent. That’s why, when the local girls basketball team decided to sell the Colonel’s famous chicken as a unique fundraiser, they knew it would be a hit.

There was only one way to transport the tasty treat from Vancouver to Bella Bella. Enter Pacific Coastal Airlines (PCA).

Over its 27-year history, PCA has donated countless flights to relocate live animals; delivered critical machinery parts to isolated fishing resorts, aquaculture facilities and logging and mining camps; and connected small settlements with “civilization” by delivering food, mail, and even blood. But the KFC shipment was particularly memorable, according to Spencer Smith, PCA’s vice president of commercial services. “We had to serve it to the passengers on that flight, too, because the smell just filled the aircraft, and it would have driven them crazy!”

PCA is a rarity: a family-run airline that has survived – and even thrived – in the competitive, cutthroat world that is Canadian aviation. Founded in 1987 after a merger between Powell Air and the Port Hardy division of AirBC, the airline’s roots go all the way back to the 1960s – when Spencer’s father, Daryl Smith, first launched his aviation career.

Daryl’s history is a colourful tale, starting with his early days as a logger, his decision in 1964 to switch gears and pursue an aviation career, and his almost immediate purchase of a half-share in a tiny Bella Coola, B.C.-based air service called Wilderness Airlines. From there, as they say, the rest is history. Daryl went on to a stint as a flying salesman, and was later instrumental in founding Powell Air, in Powell River, B.C. In January of 1981, the small operation really took off, when it won the right to provide scheduled service between Vancouver and Powell River. Throughout the tough economic times of the early 1980s, the little airline hung on, focusing on supplementing its scheduled service with revenue from floatplane flights into fishing resorts along the B.C. coast.

It was a time of massive change in the provincial aviation landscape, with a number of mergers and acquisitions setting the stage for the eventual birth of Canadian Airlines International. Meanwhile, a complicated series of deals completed in 1987 struck a partnership between Powell Air and AirBC, resulting in the creation of a new airline with an old name – Pacific Coastal.

Today, PCA is “In the Business of British Columbia,” a slogan that was recently developed to highlight the airline’s service to 65-plus airports and coastal seaports in the province.

PCA was the sixth largest airline operating at Vancouver International Airport (YVR) in 2012, as determined by Business in Vancouver newspaper and data from the Vancouver International Airport Authority. According to the annual ranking, PCA provided 220,262 outbound seats to B.C. destinations in 2012-2013, servicing destinations on Vancouver Island, as well as in the interior and northern parts of the province.

On behalf of Canada Post, the airline delivers more than 7,000 pounds of mail in coastal B.C., and supports large courier companies like FedEx and DHL. The company (including its scheduled airline, charter and seaplane divisions) brings people and goods to and from remote industrial camps, and keeps isolated communities connected to the rest of the world by delivering food and medicine. It even transports blood and organs destined for rural hospitals.

PCA’s scheduled airline service represents about 77 per cent of its revenue stream, with charter and cargo coming in at 18 and five per cent, respectively. Spencer Smith said the company has never truly tapped into the potential of the cargo market. But with the recent implementation of a better cargo tracking system, and the hiring of an employee who is dedicated to developing cargo opportunities, it’s a niche it now intends to explore.

Niche markets are PCA’s specialty. From the beginning, Daryl Smith built his business in an era of stiff competition, always looking for ways to differentiate his services. From the early days at Wilderness Airlines in the 1960s, when he would fly a Cessna 180 on floats into area logging camps to solicit work, Smith knew that aviation was a business based on relationships. It’s a belief he passed on to his sons, who are running PCA today.

“Certainly there is a lot of competition out there,” Spencer Smith told Canadian Skies during a recent visit to the company’s headquarters in the south terminal at YVR. “We’re also seeing opportunities in the natural resource industry, which can translate into work for both charters and possibly scheduled services, depending on the need and demand. Finding niche markets and developing those, and developing relationships, is the key. We’re in no hurry to grow, but when we do, we want it to make sense for our type of business. When you accept that you can’t be everything to everybody, it allows you to focus on what you do really well.”

Smith’s comments are echoed by Kevin Boothroyd, PCA’s director of sales and marketing. “One of the things I admire about this company is we know who we are. We’re an off-Broadway flyer. We’re better off serving our niches where we don’t have a lot of competition,” he said. “Nobody does community like we do.”

While it might not be all things to all people, PCA plays a critical role for B.C.’s indigenous peoples. According to the First Nations in B.C. website, there are 203 First Nations represented in the province, with an estimated total population of 196,000. With many of them located in isolated settlements, the airline is often their only outside connection.

“For some of these small communities, we really are the link to the rest of the world,” said Boothroyd. “Without us, there is a huge swath of the province that would not be connected at all.”

The airline supports First Nations communities in other ways, as well, by providing local employment and emergency services. When the only grocery store in Bella Bella was destroyed by fire in July 2013, PCA responded, flying thousands of pounds of milk, bread and eggs into the community, all delivered free of charge.

“We were moving emergency rations to keep the community fed while other resources cooperated to rebuild,” said Spencer Smith. “That building was the grocery store, library, café, liquor store, general store, all in one. It was the local mall, if you will. The fire was devastating.” 

Flying those relief supplies for free is nothing unusual for PCA. From its inception, the airline has always given back to the communities it serves.

“For almost 40 years, we’ve been flying nearly every animal you can think of on rescue missions,” said Boothroyd. “This year, we received the BC SPCA’s Caring Company of the Year Award.”

In addition to the SPCA, the airline has helped other animal support organizations over the years, including the Vancouver Aquarium’s Marine Mammal Rescue Centre and the Small Animal Rescue Society. Its non-human passenger manifest has included seals, eagles, pelicans, dogs and cats.

PCA has also supported many other causes in the past, including its long-running Christmas Adopt-a-Family program (where employees donate items to less fortunate families), and its sponsorship of countless local events in the communities it serves. Recently, PCA was honoured with several awards, including the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal, the Hope Air Philanthropist of the Year Award, and the Richmond Business Leadership Award.

According to company president Quentin Smith, “We focus on instilling a philosophy of ‘learn, earn and return,’ through both our corporate and personal values.”

Over the years, PCA has operated a wide variety of aircraft, ranging from modern turboprops to iconic bushplanes.

According to Rob Kidner, a 32-year aviation industry veteran who is now PCA’s vice president of operations, the company’s current land-based fleet includes five Saab 340As, seven Beechcraft 1900Cs, and a Beech King Air 200, the latter typically used for charters. These aircraft are based at the company’s headquarters at YVR. Its seaplane division, run from Port Hardy, B.C., operates with a single DHC-3 Otter on floats, two amphibious DHC-2 Beavers, and two straight float Beavers. Until recently, that division’s flagship aircraft was undoubtedly the twin-engine, amphibious Grumman Goose, a workhorse that enabled the airline to access small communities, logging camps and fishing resorts along the province’s rugged coast.

PCA’s fleet of four Second World War-era Goose aircraft was recently removed from service, due to the airline’s difficulty in obtaining certified parts. According to president Quentin Smith, “The Goose is a unique aircraft being utilized in a unique operating environment, and it was determined that there is still a role for the aircraft on the mid-coast. A lot of engineering and certification work has been completed over the past year, and the intent is to return at least two of the Grummans back into service in early 2014.”

All four of Daryl’s sons – Quentin, Sheldon, Nevil and Spencer – grew up around airplanes, learning the business from the ground up.

“We’ve done it all,” laughed Spencer. “The only thing I haven’t done is be a pilot or a flight attendant. I started washing airplanes in the hangar. I’d ride my bike up to the airport before school in the morning, to load bags, and come back after school to wash planes.”

Quentin, the eldest son who is universally known as “Q,” took over the reigns as company president in 2008. For many years, Nevil worked in both the ramp and maintenance sides of the business; while the youngest, Spencer, is currently in the VP of commercial services role. Sadly, their brother Sheldon – who ran the seaplane operation at Port Hardy – passed away in 2007 at the young age of 41.

Today, at age 74, Daryl is still a director of the company he built, although he spends most of his time at home in Powell River, B.C., with his wife, Doreen. Never one to seek the limelight, he has nevertheless been the recipient of a number of industry awards recognizing his lifelong contribution to Canadian aviation, including the Robert S. Day Award in 1998; the BCAC Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003; and the prestigious J.A.D. McCurdy Award in 2007.

The family atmosphere at PCA extends to everyone, not just those with the Smith surname. Despite the airline’s steady expansion over the years, its management team still cultivates an “open door” policy with staff.

“What we value is the notion that everybody’s equally important,” said Spencer Smith. “We’re all pulling together, trying to do the same thing. We want it to be an enjoyable experience for our staff to be here, because that will obviously translate to our customers’ experience.”

One of those staff members is long-time employee Beth MacKinnon, who is PCA’s finance supervisor. For 18 years, she’s been watching the Smith family grow along with their business.

“We kind of feel like we watched [Daryl’s sons] grow up,” MacKinnon told Canadian Skies. “They did a bit of everything. They’d work dispatch, freight, wherever there was a need.”

She said company managers even roll up their sleeves a couple of times a year, donning aprons to cook breakfast for the staff. “It’s nice that they do that. They invite everyone.”

Over the years, MacKinnon and her co-worker, Launie Cosens, have seen a lot of changes at PCA. Cosens, who has also been with the airline for 18 years and is currently a payroll administrator, said she believes the secret to Daryl Smith’s success is that he never made a move unless it was thoroughly calculated. “He didn’t jump in before he had researched it 100 per cent,” she said. “Before committing to a base, he researched. And I don’t think he believed in growing super-fast, either.”

But grow the company did, from its early days when there were 50 employees across all bases, to today’s employee roster containing more than 300 names, including about 60 pilots. Luckily for them, PCA pilots no longer have to load and unload passenger bags, or drive the passenger shuttle from the south terminal to the main terminal at YVR. Those duties were all performed by company pilots in the early days, when everyone wore more than one hat on the job.

New technology has come along and changed other job descriptions at the airline, too. One of the biggest examples of this transformation is in the reservations department. 

“We now have a reasonably sophisticated reservation system; but when we started, reservations were taken in this little room with a square table and a revolving Rolodex [on a Lazy Susan],” remembered MacKinnon. “Each card represented a flight. Four girls sat around this table, and they’d take calls and pull the card for the flight they wanted, and handwrite passengers’ names, right there on the card.”

Slowly but surely, things are changing in other departments, too. For the past couple of years, Joanne Wilkinson, the airline’s director of employee services, has been spearheading a “change management mandate” that has seen the airline’s leaders come together to develop a set of core values that will guide future decision-making. Those values were rolled out to the entire staff in the fall of 2012, and ever since the focus has been on making sure they are more than just words.

“We all know every company in the world can stick their values up on their website, and you can spend 10 minutes there [with the company] and not see any of them,” commented VP of ops, Rob Kidner. “But what Joanne has been driving is that we must actually live those values. We as leaders have to live the values ourselves; and if we are not, we have pledged to call each other out. It’s been a really positive transformation. That’s where what we’re doing is different from other companies.”

Along with internal changes, PCA has been examining the customer experience, too, with the goal of delivering more value to its passengers. According to Spencer Smith, the airline’s fare structure was targeted for some significant revisions.

“Our fare structure was simple, hierarchical,” he said. “So we created three fare levels: Bravo, Classic and Encore, all driven by what customers’ needs are. Some people need to book last minute, and need flexibility to change. Some are planning travel way in advance, and only want the best price. Others are somewhere in the middle. As a small airline, we’re not in a position to offer complimentary meals or lounge access, so this is how we have added more value to our brand.”

At the end of the day, Spencer said his dad’s values are woven into the fabric of the airline, including a strong focus on “getting it done.”

Just ask the Bella Bella girls basketball team, who got their shipment of Kentucky Fried Chicken from a fast food outlet almost 500 kilometres away. They’ll tell you this airline definitely delivers the goods.