By IAN ROSS
Tom Morris takes great pride that his regional airline has survived on “good decision-making.”
Since 1989, Wasaya Airways LP has been a vital lifeline for 25 mostly remote communities in northwestern Ontario, airlifting in household goods and fuel from their bases in Red Lake and Pickle Lake.
“We have gotten to where we are with a good competitive strategy and also good business sense,” says Morris, the regional carrier’s president and CEO.
From a modest float plane operation in Pickle Lake in the early 1990s, Morris today oversees a First Nation-owned airline doing more than $50 million worth of business with 310 employees and 23 aircraft.
“It’s a unique business,” says the resident of Big Trout Lake. “We’re in charter, passenger and freighting.”
Morris became head of Wasaya Airways in 2001 after taking over from Tom Kamenawatamin, the carrier’s first Aboriginal president, who is now head of the parent Wasaya Group, a partnership of 10 northern First Nations.
“I’m learning something new every day. Aviation is a good business, but it’s also a risky business that’s taught me lots over the years.”
Attracting and retaining good pilots is a constant challenge. And the expansion of access roads into the Far North may threaten their business in the next decade. But Morris says Wasaya will simply mold their strategy to fit the situation.
In recent years, most airlines have had to craft new strategies since the aviation industry’s post 9/11 fallout.
Though Wasaya was not directly affected by the 2001-2002 downturn, since supplies still had to be flown north, the subsequent rising insurance rates and fuel prices still filtered down.
It hasn’t stopped Wasaya from diversifying their operation by adding staff, new routes and bases, including a charter service centre in Timmins.
Morris says for many years, freight made up 95 per cent of the business. But they have diversified by delving more into passenger and charter services.
After acquiring Bearskin Airlines’s northern-most community assets in 2003, “that first year was one of our toughest.”
Last year came the break even point and Morris says they have “met 60 per cent of our budgeted profit” for this year.
Passenger and charter service remain the most promising areas of growth, says Morris.
He once believed those kinds of opportunities had levelled off three years ago, but growth has since been steadily rising 10 per cent each year.
Increased development activity in the Far North, such as the Victor diamond project, has helped. Ridership is also increasing.
The charter business continues to grow every year with exclusive contracts with Hydro One, Canada Post and the Northwest Company stores. They also fly miners from Thunder Bay into Goldcorp’s Musselwhite Mine, north of Pickel Lake.
Also part of the Wasaya Group of companies is a 12-employee Thunder Bay propeller shop. The Wasaya Prop Shop handles repairs and overhaul work from across Canada and from overseas including clients in Africa, South Korea and Ecuador.
“We started that company to service ourselves because we were spending $56,000 US,” says Morris, "but when we did it ourselves were doing it for $36,000 Cdn. There were significant savings to us, but people heard about us through word of mouth.”
The shop also repairs aircraft brakes, fuel lines, propeller hubs and carries out non-destructive testing.
