In the wake of Air Canada's decision to significantly cut regional services in Quebec, Air Creebec (YN, Val d'Or) has said it is ready to step up and take over some of the vacated routes, CTV has reported.
"Before the health crisis, we offered the Montréal Trudeau-Val d'Or-Chisasibi service once a day. This service will be maintained, and the flight to Rouyn will be added," President Matthew Happyjack said.
The regional specialist, which is partially owned by the Cree First Nation, will start the new route with a 3x weekly frequency but would contemplate more frequencies when demand picks up.
Happyjack underlined that the indefinite suspension of activities at Renard diamond mine, where Air Creebec operated a fly-in-fly-out charter contract, has freed up some of the airline's aircraft, allowing it to redeploy them on new scheduled services.
Pascan Aviation (P6, Montréal Metropolitan) has previously expressed interest in some of the ex-Air Canada routes in Quebec but underlined that they would most likely need to be subsidised by the authorities.
Air Creebec currently operates a minimal level of scheduled flights, plying the Moosonee-Timmins route in Ontario 2x weekly. All of the airline's services in Quebec remain suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The airline's normal schedule in Quebec encompasses services from Montreal via Val d'Or, Waskaganish, and Chisasibi to Kuujjuarapik, and via Chibougamau, Némiscau, Waskaganish, East Main, and Wemindji to Chisasibi, including some services operated without some of the intermediate stops.
According to the ch-aviation fleets module, Air Creebec operates fourteen DHC-8-100s, one DHC-8-300, and one DHC-8-Q300. It also operates two BAe 748s for cargo charters. Air Creebec owns a 50% stake in charter specialist Propair (PRO, Rouyn).
