Canadian carrier Air North welcomed its first of two ATR 42-300 turboprops to its Erik Nielsen Whitehorse International Airport base in the Yukon on June 1.
It arrived as C-FTJB (c/n 119) and will be re-registered C-FGVF before entering service in the autumn for scheduled services on the airline’s northern route to Dawson, Old Crow and Inuvik – for which it currently uses Hawker Siddeley HS 748s.
Director of Flight Operations Ryan Kinney said: “The Hawkers continue to serve us well, but we need to make long-term plans to modernise our turboprop operation… the ATR is an ideal fit for that need.”
The second of the ATRs will join Air North later this year. Bought from First Air, they have been acquired with financial support from the Vuntut Gwitchin Limited Partnership (VGLP) and Kluane Dana Shaw Corporation (KDSC), the business arms for the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation (VGFN) and the Kluane First Nation (KFN).
Air North President and CEO Joe Sparling said: “Local partnership, particularly with Yukon First Nations, has been integral to our success as a company and reflects our philosophy of ‘thinking Yukon first’. In our experience, this approach has proven itself time and again, and we’ll continue to use it as a model.”
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