A Yukon-based airline now has a proper place to park its aircraft in Nanaimo.
Alkan Air, an airline specializing in medical flights and charters to remote parts of the Yukon, opened an 835-square-metre hangar and operation base at the Nanaimo Airport earlier this month.
Ray Rothlisberger, Alkan’s operations manager, said the airline has operated medical flights in and out of Nanaimo successfully for nearly two years and the time was right to make a more solid commitment to the city and to Vancouver Island.
“Our core business has mainly been medical flying. Mainly picking up Canadians vacationing in the States or further afield, who have either gotten injured or sick. We pick them up and bring them back to Canada into the medical system here,” he said. “We decided it was time to go ahead and do a long-term investment and put some roots down.”
Prior to the construction of the hangar, Alkan Air was using outdoor space to store provided by the Nanaimo Flying Club. Rothlisberger said the arrangement was great, but the rain sometimes caused some issues with their planes over time.
“It’s nice to have our own hangar now,” he said.
Alkan Air has been operating out of Erik Nielsen Whitehorse International Airport in the Yukon since 1977. The company currently has a fleet of 17 planes, with three of them, a Beechcraft King Air 200, Beechcraft King Air 300 and a Beechcraft 1900D slated to fly out of Nanaimo.
In addition to providing medical flights, Alkan Air will also be using the Nanaimo Airport to fly workers from the Island to a mine in the Yukon.
“One of our clients started up a new mine just outside of Watson Lake and they were looking for someone to move their crew and a large portion of their crew come from the Island,” he said. “They were using commercial flights from the Island to Vancouver and then getting them up to Watson Lake, but it was too challenging for them.”
It’s one of the reasons why the company purchased the Beechcraft 1900D, which was once operated by Air Canada.
“We can take 18 people with it,” Rothlisberger said. “It’s been good.”
He said the company is looking at operating corporate charter flights to sporting events and other events out of Nanaimo, adding the 1900D has the ability to fly non-stop to southern California.
“[The 1900D] has given us a bit of leeway to start looking at other markets as well,” he said.