North of Ordinary

Like just about everything Arctic, the very name of Yukon-based Air North conveys a sense of adventure, mystery, and optimism. Adventure and mystery because most Canadians have yet to experience the majesty of the land above the 60th parallel, and optimism because of the vast region’s potential and its indomitable residents. Even Air North’s quarterly inflight magazine Yukon, North of Ordinary hints at the land’s uniqueness. There are myriad stories about visitors being drawn back time and again—and long-time locals who wouldn’t trade their home for all the gold in the Klondike.

Joseph Sparling and Tom Wood kick-started their ambitiously-named charter operation in Whitehorse in 1977, using a single Cessna 206 to service the burgeoning but cyclical tourism and mining sectors. Having operated a wide range of aircraft since then from its main hub, Erik Nielsen Whitehorse International Airport, Air North now provides scheduled and charter passenger and cargo service with five Boeing 737s and two Hawker Siddeley HS-748 turboprops, which will be replaced in late spring by a pair of ATR 42-300s.

Sparling is Air North’s president and chief executive officer, holding a 51 per cent stake in the company; he’s also a 737 captain who flies twice a week and has about 22,000 hours logged on various aircraft. Wood, who remains on the airline’s board of directors, sold his holding to the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation in 2000. 

“They wanted to buy and Tom wanted to sell,” Sparling told Skies in a candid interview. “With money in the bank, they formed an investment company and looked for strategic opportunities. We were the first; they reasoned that since they were spending a lot of money on transportation, it should benefit the community and that they should have some control of the product that is so important to their everyday life.”

Then, there are the roughly 1,500 Yukon residents who seized the chance to acquire smaller equity holdings in Air North. “It’s very similar to the rationale used by the First Nation when they decided to invest,” said Sparling, admitting he hadn’t thought there would be much interest in the equity offering. But it drew “a lineup of people” and “the sentiments expressed over and over by these new shareholders were, firstly, that they saw their ticket revenues leaving the Yukon with other carriers and, secondly, that there were few local jobs.” Those local shareholders remain “very engaged,” even turning out in significant numbers at annual general meetings in Air North’s main hangar in Whitehorse.

The airline’s expansion over the years has been measured, deliberately different from how others have entered the aviation business. 

“Often, you’ll see airlines start up overnight with one airplane and six months later they have 10, and plan to have 30 in a couple of years,” said Sparling. The result is often a huge and ultimately unserviceable debt load and then a calamitous collapse. He said Air North did take on debt when it financed its first hangar in 1979, only to see interest rates soar into the double digits when the bottom fell out of the economy. “We told ourselves that if we escaped from that, we would never get ourselves heavily into debt again. We try to remain, for the most part, debt-free.” 

Air North grew steadily through the 1980s, acquiring a range of different aircraft (Douglas DC-3s and a DC-4, as well as sundry Cessnas and Beechcraft). Piston-powered aircraft were replaced with turboprops in the 1990s as the company, formally known as Air North Charter and Training Ltd., adjusted to cyclical demands. Its first jets, two Boeing 737-200s, arrived in 2002 as Air North went head-to-head with the mainline carriers on routes to and from southern Canada.

When Air North launched jet service, they were “the new kids on the block” because Whitehorse was already being served by one mainline carrier. “They were certainly very aggressive with us to start with—and they remain aggressive,” said Sparling. Then, a second mainline carrier arrived in 2012, and “for a period of time it was the two big guys having a gunfight in our backyard, as we tried to keep from becoming collateral damage in the crossfire.”

But, buoyed by the support of Yukoners, Air North persevered. The calculated gamble paid off, in that nearly 60 per cent of passengers travelling through Whitehorse in 2015 preferred to fly with “their” airline.

“Absolutely!” said Sparling, when asked whether Yukoners have a proprietary attitude to Air North. “I look at our product as locally owned and produced,” he added. “There are lots of goods and services that people in the North import or outsource, so anything that can be produced locally is a feather in our cap with respect to the economy.”

Continued change saw the addition of larger and more modern 737s and the retirement of the 200s. This necessitated expansion of the Whitehorse base, which now includes the original hangar (housing flight operations and the cargo centre), two larger hangars, a reservations and administration building, a fuel tank farm, and in-house catering and cabin services. Secondary bases are at Vancouver International Airport and Dawson City Airport.

Air North’s core business is scheduled regional passenger and cargo service between Whitehorse, Dawson City, and Old Crow in the Yukon, and Inuvik and Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories, as well as “seamless” connections to points south in Vancouver, Kelowna, Edmonton and Calgary. It also has service to and from Ottawa, via Yellowknife, which Yukon Liberal MP Larry Bagnell in particular appreciates. He told Skies that until Air North inaugurated the route, it took him 14 hours to fly home on weekends via Toronto and Vancouver. It now takes a little over five hours.

In addition, Air North operates regular freight trips and fuel-haul flights to Old Crow which, like many northern communities, is accessible only by air. The company also flies several regular charters for resource companies, exclusive fishing lodges, and cruise ship operators, as well as seasonal vacation flights to Las Vegas, Nev.

Beyond flying, Air North provides fuel services in Whitehorse, as well as ground handling services in Whitehorse, Vancouver, and Edmonton for a wide range of airlines including Condor, United, American, AeroMexico, Alaska, and KLM.

Air North, like many carriers, has had to do a fair amount of juggling to deal with the cyclical and seasonal nature of its business. Curiously, though, it has had some of its best years during economic downturns. “Our demand is somewhat stable,” said Sparling, pointing out that while the economy has slowed again, northerners continue to travel. It could be argued that for them, it’s a necessity of life.

“We have an ability to cope with economic cycles; they’ve always been here. We’re used to it in our regional operations where the cycles are more seasonal. Economic cycles on top of the normal seasonal cycles don’t create any huge challenges for us, because we can always reduce or add capacity as required,” he concluded.