Air Mikisew

Air Mikisew

IATA V8 ICAO N/A Callsign AURORA
Founded	1961 (as Contact Air)
Hubs	Fort McMurray Airport
Focus cities	Edmonton City Centre (Blatchford Field) Airport Fort Chipewyan Airport
Fleet size	10
Destinations	3
Parent company	Air Mikisew Ltd.
Headquarters	Fort McMurray, Alberta
Key people	Graham Davis (General & Operations Manager), Tom Tays (Chief Pilot)

Air Mikisew was an airline based in Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada. It operated scheduled passenger services in the Fort McMurray/Fort Chipewyan region. Its main base was the Fort McMurray Airport. It was awarded the Fort McMurray Business of the Year award in 2005.

History

The airline was established and started operations in 1961 as Contact Air and became wholly owned by the Mikisew Cree First Nation in 1995. It had 63 employees as of at March 2007. Mikisew is the Cree word for eagle. The airline was grounded in 2010 and permanently closed by 2011.

Destinations

Air Mikisew provided scheduled flights between Fort Chipewyan, Fort McMurray, and Edmonton. It also provided aero-medical flights for the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo area and charter flights throughout western Canada.

Fleet

As of June 2010, the Air Mikisew fleet consisted of the following aircraft until its audit by Transport Canada:

• two British Aerospace Jetstream 31 (one Executive and one Commuter configuration);
• one Raytheon Beech 1900D;
• one Raytheon Beech B99;
• one Raytheon Beech King Air B200 Medevac;
• one Cessna 208 Caravan (Amphibious in the summer);
• two Piper PA-31-350 Navajo Chieftains;
• one Cessna 207;
• one Cessna 206; and
• one Cessna 185 (on floats).