Alkan Air Ltd. is an

airline An airline is a company that provides air transport services for traveling passengers and freight. Airlines use aircraft to supply these services and may form partnerships or alliances with other airlines for codeshare agreements, in wh ...

headquartered in

Whitehorse, Yukon Whitehorse () is the capital of Yukon, and the largest city in Northern Canada. It was incorporated in 1950 and is located at kilometre 1426 (Historic Mile 918) on the Alaska Highway in southern Yukon. Whitehorse's downtown and Riverdale areas ...

, Canada. The company operates seven-day-a-week charter and

air ambulance Air medical services is a comprehensive term covering the use of air transportation, aeroplane or helicopter, to move patients to and from healthcare facilities and accident scenes. Personnel provide comprehensive prehospital and emergency and cri ...

(

medevac Medical evacuation, often shortened to medevac or medivac, is the timely and efficient movement and en route care provided by medical personnel to wounded being evacuated from a battlefield, to injured patients being evacuated from the scene of a ...

) services. The Whitehorse and Mayo (seasonal) bases generally focus on wheel and floatplane charter and medevac services in northern and

western Canada Western Canada, also referred to as the Western provinces, Canadian West or the Western provinces of Canada, and commonly known within Canada as the West, is a Canadian region that includes the four western provinces just north of the Canada� ...

and

Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S. ...

. The Nanaimo, BC base provides charter and medevac services, focused primarily in western Canada, the western United States and Mexico. From 2016 to 2018, Alkan also operated scheduled flights between

Erik Nielsen Whitehorse International Airport Erik Nielsen Whitehorse International Airport is an airport of entry located in Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada. It is part of the National Airports System, and is owned and operated by the Government of Yukon. The airport was renamed in honour of lon ...

and Watson Lake Airport.

History

Alkan Air was formed in 1977 by Barry Watson and two Whitehorse businessmen, Win and Joe Muff. It was named in honour of the famous Alaska Highway or Al-Can Highway which skirts the City of Whitehorse. Hugh Kitchen became a partner in 1987 when Win and Joe Muff decided to sell their stake in the company in order to start a telecommunications business in Whitehorse. The company began by operating a Cessna 206 on floats/skis and a

Cessna 337 The Cessna Skymaster is an American twin-engine civil utility aircraft built in a push-pull configuration. Its engines are mounted in the nose and rear of its pod-style fuselage. Twin booms extend aft of the wings to the vertical stabilizers ...

on wheels. Expansion soon followed and by 1987, when float and ski operations were discontinued, Alkan Air was one of the main providers of scheduled service in Yukon. In the early 1990s, the company gradually phased out scheduled flights in order to focus on charter operations. High performance, pressurized

Beech King Air The Beechcraft King Air is a line of American utility aircraft produced by Beechcraft. The King Air line comprises a number of twin-turboprop models that have been divided into two families. The Model 90 and 100 series developed in the 1960s ...

s were introduced in 1994. Alkan Air primarily flies charter operations for hunting outfitters and government operations. Three Kings Airs are dedicated to flying medevacs for the Yukon Government. In October 2015, Alkan Air opened a flight training school to accommodate a need in Yukon for people wanting to learn to fly. As of 2016, the flight school operates two Cessna 172's, a Piper PA-34 Seneca 3 and can train for Private and Commercial Licenses and multi-engine and instrument ratings. In addition, Alkan Air operates a Transport Canada certified simulator for instrument training.

Fleet

As of December 2020,

Transport Canada Transport Canada (french: Transports Canada) is the department within the Government of Canada responsible for developing regulations, policies and services of road, rail, marine and air transportation in Canada. It is part of the Transporta ...

lists the following aircraft: C-GMOC Alkan BE20 01

In addition Transport Canada lists a Cessna 206 and a DHC-3 Otter with cancelled certificates.

Accidents and incidents

On August 6, 2019, a Cessna 208B (C-FSKF) crashed into a mountain near

Mayo Airport Mayo Airport is located north of Mayo, Yukon Yukon (; ; formerly called Yukon Territory and also referred to as the Yukon) is the smallest and westernmost of Canada's three territories. It also is the second-least populated province or ter ...

killing the pilot and the only passenger. The aircraft had departed Rau strip, a remote airstrip serving a mineral exploration camp about northeast of Mayo.2 dead in plane crash near Yukon's Mayo Lake
/ref> The

Transportation Safety Board of Canada The Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB, french: Bureau de la sécurité des transports du Canada, BST), officially the Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation and Safety Board (french: link=no, Bureau canadien d'enquête sur les ...

(TSB) investigation report into the accident was released on July 29, 2020, and identified poor pilot decision making in conditions of poor weather in mountainous terrain as a major cause of the crash.

References

External links

Alkan Air
{{Airlines of Canada Companies based in Whitehorse Charter airlines of Canada Airlines established in 1977 Regional airlines of Yukon Seaplane operators