N.L. airline offers Iqaluit-Gander flights

Newfoundlanders and Labradorians who work in Canada's eastern Arctic can soon have an easier time flying home, thanks to weekly flights being offered between Iqaluit and Gander and Goose Bay, N.L.

Gander-based EVAS Air Charters says it will start flying between Iqaluit and Gander, with a stop in Goose Bay, every Sunday starting June 5.

The airline says it will use a Beechcraft 1900D turboprop aircraft that can accommodate 18 passengers and fly directly from Gander to Iqaluit in less than five hours.

"Our biggest motivation was the large number of Newfoundlanders that we know that are in Iqaluit as well as the eastern Arctic," EVAS president and CEO Patrick White told CBC News.

A return trip aboard EVAS Air Charters will cost $1,750.00 plus HST. Air Canada charges more than $2,000 for a return flight from Iqaluit to Gander, with stops each way in Ottawa or Montreal and Halifax or St. John's.

"If I can get home for the same price as it is to get to Ottawa, I'm taking that one," said Adam Fisher, a Nunavut government employee who has not gone home to Northern Arm, N.L., in several years.

Fisher said he would normally fly from Iqaluit to Ottawa to St. John's, then drive for almost five hours to get home. Landing in Gander instead, he said, would save him time and money.

Air Labrador tried flying a similar route in 2003, but it halted the route a year later. But White said he believes a strong economy will make the EVAS route work this time.

"The economic development that is happening in your region is very attractive to all of us in southern latitudes," he said.

"Of course, that economic development is exactly what has brought a large number of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians to your region."