Perseverance, professional staff and partnerships pay off for Air Tindi

By Alayna Ward

The romance of flying in Canada’s rugged northern frontier hides the gritty reality of running an airline in an area with little infrastructure, demanding safety and regulatory requirements and a sometimes punishing climate. “It’s not always glamorous work,” says Trevor Wever, Air Tindi’s vice president for business services. “And we’ve all got the odd battle scar to prove it, but at the end of the day we continue to stand the test of time and provide safe, reliable and professional service to our clients.” Air Tindi’s diversified fleet of more than 20 aircraft of nine different types, including Twin Otters, Dash 7s, Learjet 35A and Cessna Caravans, allows the company to provide a flexible service suitable to its operating environment. From its Yellowknife airport flight centre and its Latham Island float base, Air Tindi’s essential operations include daily scheduled flights to isolated northern communities and charter flights serving tourism, government, diamond mining, and geophysical and exploration companies. As Wever says, “We serve the companies doing the often thankless work of searching for, and identifying, new discoveries that provide new anchors for economic drivers in the NWT.” 

This size of fleet and the wide range of northern territory that Air Tindi covers means it needs an experienced and highly trained workforce from pilots, to aircraft maintenance engineers right through to the freight handlers and booking services personnel. There are 180 employees working from the Yellowknife base of operations and a further 25 personnel in various northern communities to manage local freight and passenger logistics. President Alasdair Martin has held senior roles in various mining companies and projects, many of them in the North, and Trevor Wever has a long work history in the northern commercial aviation field. Together, they work with partners Tli Cho Air, Aqsaqniq Air, Kivallingmiut Aviation, Auyuittuq Aviation, Denesoline Corporation and Deh Cho Air to provide professional charter and scheduled air service. 

The company’s core business has remained relatively unchanged since it started – providing specialty aviation services in niche markets. That includes medevac operations with specially retrofitted aircraft and – perhaps what they are best known for – off-strip operations with their Twin Otters and Dash 7 fleet equipped with floats, skis and tundra tires capable of landing nearly anywhere throughout the Arctic. “We specialize at going into places with those aircraft that not many other types are capable of,” says Wever. “These types of services would be impossible without having some of the most skilled and experienced pilots, engineers, dispatchers, ramp agents and customer service staff around, and our Aboriginal partners and stakeholders are really the glue that binds everything together. Everyone has an unwavering commitment to safety and achieving the best possible result for the client, and we are extremely proud of that.”  YKCI