Aklak Air cancels Inuvik-Tuktoyaktuk flight service due to 'significant decline in demand'
Aklak Air says it was 'forced to discontinue' the route after the opening of the Inuvik-Tuktoyaktuk highway
Aklak Air says it's been forced to discontinue its long-running flight service to and from Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk, due to dying demand for the service since the opening of the all-season highway.
The Inuvik-Tuktoyaktuk highway opened in November. Since then, "there has been a significant decline in the demand," the Inuvik-based airline wrote in a notice.
The airline ran three flights a day in the summer months, and one to two daily in the winter. Ken Dalton, the company's general manager, couldn't remember exatly when Aklak started the route, but said "it's been a long time.
"It was our most frequent route," he said
Services are cut as of Friday, Feb. 9, according to the release. Dalton said the company is not considering layoffs at the moment, hoping that demand picks up on some of their other routes.
The airline said if the highway closes for a lengthy period of time in the future, it will consider operating flights for that duration.
"From all of us at Aklak Air we'd like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their patronage on our Tuktoyaktuk route over the last number of decades," the airline wrote.
With files from Walter Strong