Angel Flight East Kootenay will be grounding their large aircraft for the month of July for scheduled maintenance.
They purchased their 1979 twin-engine, seven-seat airplane back in 2021.
Angel Flight founder and lead pilot Brent Bidston says it’s allowed them to increase their flight load and cancel fewer flights.
“Previously we were cancelling up to 50 per cent of our flights due to the weather,” he said.
“We’ve had an incredible record. There is an element of luck, but we’ve only cancelled four flights in two and a half years due to weather.”
The downside is they fly out of smaller airports less often, but if passengers can make it to Cranbrook there’s more of a guarantee that they will make it to Kelowna.
“We used to serve many smaller airports because we have volunteers with light aircraft, but now we only really fly Cranbrook to Kelowna because we have the larger instrument-rated aircraft that is much more reliable,” he said.
“As a result, the number of people that we carry has increased significantly but it means people may have to drive an hour to get to Cranbrook.”
The large aircraft is in need of multiple maintenance projects but they are holding off so they can conduct them at the same time this summer.
“This coming July we have the aircraft scheduled to be on the ground for the whole month for maintenance,” Bidston added.
“Although the reliable aircraft will not be available, we will attempt to do flights back on single-engine aircraft.”
He says it’s a slower time of the year so it should impact service too much.
“We picked July because it’s been the lowest number of requests in the past few years and also the weather is hopefully at its best.”
Free flights for Kelowna appointments can be booked on their website.
Be the first to know! Don’t miss out on breaking news and daily updates in your area. Sign up to MyEastKootenayNow News Alerts.
