Northwestern Air Lease Ltd. will end passenger service to Grande Prairie and Fort McMurray from the Red Deer Airport starting next week.
As of Feb. 17, the Fort Smith, N.W.T.-based airline company will ground the two routes.
Jim Heidema, Northwestern Air Lease Ltd.’s CEO, cited the economic situation in Alberta, dropping oil prices, weak passenger volumes and the drop in the Canadian dollar for the company’s decision to cancel the two routes.
“We saw this happen about four months ago when the trend began,” he said, “It’s steadily gotten worse. We’ve had to make a business decision. The routes are just not sustainable at this point.”
The airline company will continue to offer flights to and from Kelowna.
The four-times-a-week Red Deer-to-Grande Prairie service just launched in November. Heidema said the passenger loads were not what they had hoped.
“We had hoped to continue because we want to provide the service, but it’s tough when the market is down and the economy is down,” he said. “It’s not just one thing. It’s three or four things that have come in at the same time. All airlines have a history of going up and down on routes. But this just all came at the same time.”
The airline was losing money on the routes.
But Heidema did not rule out the possibility that service may return in the future.
RJ Steenstra, CEO of the Red Deer Airport, said they are extremely disappointed but he said “business is business.” He said Northwestern has been a great partner and one they are sorry to see have difficulties keeping flights in the air.
The flight service made up about 15 per cent of the passenger volume at the Red Deer Airport.
Steenstra said there will be some impact on the airport.
But he said Air Canada passenger volumes are continuing to grow.
“We are focused on the future and trying to regain other services,” he said. “There is a lot of interest in doing so. The future bodes well.”
Steenstra said the Fort McMurray service always struggled with time and frequency. He said it didn’t seem to match what the market needed. There were three flights a week out of Red Deer.
“They were not able to make those changes and now unfortunately they have decided they have to pull out those two routes for the time being,” said Steenstra.
He said it was unfortunate that the Grande Prairie route was not given more time.
Passengers will still have the option to fly to Grande Prairie and Fort McMurray through Air Canada with connections in Calgary.
crhyno@reddeeradvcoate.com