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Founded | 1989 | ||||||
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AOC # | Canada: 5343 [2] United States: Q1NF069F [3] | ||||||
Hubs | Iqaluit Airport Oshawa Executive Airport | ||||||
Fleet size | 14 [4] | ||||||
Destinations | Air charter/MEDEVAC | ||||||
Headquarters | Iqaluit, Nunavut and Oshawa, Ontario [5] | ||||||
Key people | Jeff Mahoney (president) | ||||||
Website | Air Nunavut / SmoothAir Charter |
Air Nunavut, trading as Smooth Air, [2] is an airline based in Iqaluit, Nunavut, Canada. It is the only local and Inuit-owned [6] [7] air carrier in the eastern Arctic operating charter services throughout Canada's Arctic, northern Quebec and Greenland. Its main base is Iqaluit Airport. [8]
The airline was established and started charter operations in 1989 as Air Baffin. Scheduled services were inaugurated in May 1992. [8]
The airline also has two main bases of operations, Oshawa Executive Airport and Iqaluit Airport. Under the division company name SmoothAir Charter operate Dassault Falcons out of Oshawa Executive Airport offering charter services. [9] The Beechcraft King Air 200s remain in Iqaluit servicing the surrounding communities.
According to Transport Canada the Air Nunavut fleet consists of the following aircraft (as of October 2023): [4]
Aircraft | No. of aircraft | Variants | Notes |
Beechcraft Super King Air | 4 | 200 | 8, 11 or 13 passengers, gravel strip capable. |
Dassault Falcon 10 | 7 | Falcon 10 | Listed by Air Nunavut as Falcon 10 Jet, 7 passengers, gravel strip capable. One aircraft is listed by Transport Canada as having an expired temporary registration certificate. [10] Only two listed at the SmoothAir Charter site. [9] |
Dassault Falcon 20 | 3 | Mystère/Falcon 20F5, Falcon 200, Fan Jet Falcon | Only two listed at the SmoothAir Charter site. [9] |
Iqaluit is the capital of the Canadian territory of Nunavut, its largest community, and its only city. It was known as Frobisher Bay from 1942 to 1987, after the large bay on the coast on which the city is situated. The northernmost city in Canada, its traditional Inuktitut name was restored in 1987.
Bradley Air Services Limited, operating as First Air, was an airline headquartered in Kanata, a suburb of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. It operated services to 34 communities in Nunavut, Nunavik, and the Northwest Territories. First Air has assisted in various humanitarian missions such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake, airlifting relief supplies and equipment. Its main base, which included a large hangar, cargo and maintenance facility, was located at Ottawa Macdonald–Cartier International Airport, with hubs at Iqaluit Airport, and Yellowknife Airport. On November 1, 2019, the airline consolidated operations with Canadian North.
The Qikiqtaaluk Region, Qikiqtani Region or the Baffin Region is the easternmost, northernmost, and southernmost administrative region of Nunavut, Canada. Qikiqtaaluk is the traditional Inuktitut name for Baffin Island. Although the Qikiqtaaluk Region is the most commonly used name in official contexts, several notable public organizations, including Statistics Canada prior to the 2021 Canadian census, use the older term Baffin Region.
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Air Inuit is an airline headquartered in the Montreal borough of Saint-Laurent, Quebec, Canada. It operates domestic passenger services and charter and cargo services in Nunavik, southern Quebec, and Nunavut. Its main base is Kuujjuaq Airport.
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Oshawa Executive Airport is a municipal airport adjacent to the north end of the city of Oshawa, Ontario, Canada. It is the busiest general aviation airport without scheduled airline service in the Greater Toronto Area by aircraft movements and one of the busiest general aviation only airports in Canada. It includes two paved runways and instrument approaches.
Iqaluit Airport serves Iqaluit, Nunavut, Canada and is located adjacent to the city. It hosts scheduled passenger service from Ottawa, Montreal, Rankin Inlet, and Kuujjuaq on carriers such as Canadian North, and from smaller communities throughout eastern Nunavut. It is also used as a forward operating base by the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF). In 2011, the terminal handled more than 120,000 passengers.
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Summit Air is a Canadian airline headquartered in Yellowknife that operates scheduled, charter and cargo aviation throughout the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and Yukon. Summit Air is a member of the Ledcor Group of Companies and operates in partnership with several other companies and communities including the Haisla Nation, Air Baffin, the Det'on Cho Corporation, and businesses in the Kitikmeot Region.
Keewatin Air is an airline that operates from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. The airline was started by Frank Robert May and his wife Judy Saxby in 1971, in the Keewatin Region, then part of the Northwest Territories.
Nunavut is the largest and northernmost territory of Canada. It was separated officially from the Northwest Territories on April 1, 1999, via the Nunavut Act and the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement Act, which provided this territory to the Inuit for independent government. The boundaries had been drawn in 1993. The creation of Nunavut resulted in the first major change to Canada's political map in half a century since the province of Newfoundland was admitted in 1949.
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FLYGTA Inc., operating as FLYGTA Airlines, established in 2014, is a Canadian air operator serving southern Ontario and Quebec. FLYGTA is a jet charter company with official bases in Toronto, Niagara, Oshawa, Muskoka, and Montreal, and provides air tourism services in Toronto and Niagara Falls, air charter, cargo, and scheduled flights. As of November 6, 2017, the airline served over eight destinations with scheduled flights from Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport to/from destinations such as Barrie/Simcoe, St. Catharines/Niagara, Kitchener/Waterloo, Wiarton/Bruce Peninsula and Muskoka. The flight between Toronto-Billy Bishop and St. Catharines/Niagara is the shortest link between the two cities and is advertised as the shortest commercial flight in North America at 10 minutes according to the company and 15 minutes according to Global News.
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Air Nunavut: BFF, BAFFIN