By Liam Verster

Flight cancellations

Northern Air to discontinue its Edmonton-Peace River flights

Dec 18, 2019 | 5:00 AM

Northern Air is cancelling its scheduled flights between Edmonton and Peace River, effective January 1, 2020.

The loss of the only scheduled air service at the Peace River Airport means they will no longer qualify for the $1.1-million annual federal capital funding grant through the Airports Capital Assistance Program (ACAP).

Chief Administration Officer for the Town of Peace River, Christopher Parker, says the loss of that funding could have serious effects on the town.

“Now what happens here, is we have about, in the next few years, about $5.5 million in capital funding that we would be looking forward to. And now that we don’t have access to this money, we have to either try and find other ways of raising those funds. And, of course, if we can’t get another airline in here, that means most likely increasing taxes, or trimming our operations budget.”

He says losing the service won’t have much of an affect on the general public, as most residents don’t use Northern Air, opting instead to drive to Grande Prairie and catch their flight there, or driving all the way to Edmonton rather than flying.

Parker adds they run forestry operations, spraying companies, and Air Ambulances out of the airport, and while those services don’t bring in any grants of their own, they all benefit from ACAP’s funding.

“When we have to re-do the runway, which we did a couple years ago, is $13-million. If we had asked for the local businesses to pay for that, it would be astronomical and they wouldn’t be able to do it.”

Parker says they have been expecting Northern Air to cut their services for close to two-and-a-half years, when the request for proposal for Air Ambulance service went out.

He says for the past few months they’ve been working on bringing in another airline, to provide a travel service to the region, and maintain the ACAP funding. However, there is still a lot of work in finding a suitable company to work out of the Peace River Airport.

“We have been actively, behind the scenes, doing that already, but there’s very few airlines that are out there, and many times they are asking for huge subsidies to come to a location. So we have to look at, if they are huge subsidies, how much do we actually subsidize an organization, as opposed to what’s the benefit we get out of it.”

Though the schedule flights are being eliminated, Northern Air will continue to run charter flights out of the Peace River Airport, and the company’s headquarters will also remain in the town.

Northern Air could not be reached for a comment on whether the change would affect employees, businesses, or the future of the company.