Air North blames airport fees, flat ridership for slashed Ottawa flights

It's official Air North is scaling back its direct service between Whitehorse, Yellowknife and Ottawa. The scheduled service will now only be offered in the summer.

Earlier this month the Yukon airline saidthat it was looking at cutting back on the service, but that no decision had been made. On Monday, the company confirmed that the service would cease after January and resume for the summer.

"All we're doing is we're just eliminating some of the capacity during the slowest periods ofthe year," said Air North president Joe Sparling.

He blames rising fuel costs, as well astraffic on the route being "kind of flat" for parts of the year. Yellowknife airport fees are also making it hard for the route to turn a profit, Sparling said.

"Between the increased landing fees and terminal fees, they've added about $200,000a year to our cost of operating our [schedules]," hesaid.

"We can't really operate flights that aren't at least buying the gas and paying the wages."

The Ottawa service, introduced four years ago, will continue as scheduled in Januarybut stopafter that.

Summer flights on theWhitehorse-Yellowknife-Ottawa route will then beginon June 15, 2019, and continue until Sept. 1.

Air passes already purchased for the route will be automatically extended until September, andcustomers who haven't used any segments of their air pass can call for a refund.