If you’re wondering if regularly scheduled commercial flights will return to Fort Frances since Bearskin stopped its service to the airport, you’re not alone. While no agreement has been reached so far between the airport and a commercial airline, that could change this year, according to Tom Batiuk, airport supervisor for the Fort Frances Municipal Airport.
“In a perfect world, sure, we would absolutely expect that to happen,” Batiuk told The Times. “There are no issues from an operational standpoint. We haven’t changed any of our operational hours or anything of that nature. We have fuel present on the field, we have de-icing capability present on the field, and we have very good snow removal equipment on the field here right now.”
The airport is not sitting idle—it sees regular use through medical evacuation flights through organizations such as Ornge, Ontario’s dedicated not‑for‑profit air ambulance and critical‑care transport service.
“We are still seeing numerous flights coming and going out of the airport. That part hasn’t changed since the loss of Bearskin,” said Travis Rob, manager of operations and facilities for the Town. “We still see around 600 or 700 medevac flights a year.”
Councillor Mike Behan suggested at the Town Council meeting Monday night that regularly scheduled air service is critical to the economic success of Fort Frances.
Rob agreed with that assessment.
“The first question that developers always ask is, ‘How do I get there?’ Then you say, ‘Okay! Well, first you’ve got to fly to Thunder Bay and then you rent a car and you get to drive for three hours. Then you’ll be in Fort Frances.’ That’s a tough sell, right there. That’s a big, big barrier to get over before they even have a chance to come and see what we have to offer as a community,” Rob said.
“We can only go so far. The only way this is going to become successful is if the people of the region sit in the seats of the aircraft and fly wherever it’s flying to.”
That creates a use-it-or-lose it scenario, Rob said, which will require residents of the Rainy River District to return to air travel in significant numbers to maintain the service.
“My plea to the district is, if we are successful in bringing somebody to schedule flights to Fort Frances, the only way this is going to get better is if the support from the community is there and people are using the service,” Rob said. “If people aren’t using the service, it doesn’t matter how much money we throw at it; it is not going to sustain.”
To explore its options, the Town engaged aviation consulting agency InterVISTAS in partnership with Kenora and Dryden, which delivered a 185-page report that confirmed the need for regular passenger air service in the region.
“We hired a consulting company called InterVISTAS to do a study on airline travel to the three communities,” Batiuk said. “It is very promising.”
While Fort Frances has yet to come to an agreement with any airlines, Kenora Airport has secured regularly scheduled flights with Thunder Bay-based regional carrier Northstar Air.
“I’m not sure if we’re going to be doing that or not at this point, but we intend to actively seek scheduled service for the facility and the community,” Batiuk said. “For the Fort Frances community, they think that with no airline, nothing is going on here. The reality of it is, towards the end of Bearskin Airlines’ service to Fort Frances, they were only six per cent of the annual revenue of the airport facility.”
The airport has many other uses that firmly cement its value to the region, Rob said. “Road closures in and around Thunder Bay make travel for medical or other things that direction challenging because you don’t know if you’re going to be able to get there. Air traffic isn’t immune to weather delays and things of that nature, but it’s another option.”
With the medevac and other traffic, the airport remains financially stable despite the lack of regularly scheduled commercial flights. While it does not currently have funding through the Airport Capital Assistance Program (ACAP), that too could change in the near future.
“Going forward, we would be looking at resurfacing our runways, the apron, the taxiways, and bringing everything up to the fifth-edition standard of TP 312,” Batiuk said. “It’s basically a set of guidelines that we use to identify where our signs belong, what the runway surfaces must look like in any given conditions, the lighting, and all of that stuff.”
According to Rob, another thing needed to get ACAP funding is to meet an annual transport quota of 3,000 passengers out of Fort Frances to other destinations. But the airport needs an air carrier committed to servicing the region first, which will need to win back travellers.
“The last carrier developed a reputation for being late, or not flying at all, or maybe the baggage didn’t make it where you were going,” Rob said. “That is a reputation for being inconvenient. Whoever the new carrier is that comes in has to work through that stigma and prove themselves to be reliable and on time and convenient, all of the things that people are looking for in an air service provider.”
