Air Canada service in Sept-Îles | “A region taken hostage”

Aluminerie Alouette says it is “irritated” and “limited” by Air Canada’s service in Sept-Îles

(Quebec) The unreliability of Air Canada’s service to Sept-Îles is now an obstacle to the “smooth running of operations” at Aluminerie Alouette and the “implementation” of its development projects. Faced with the silence of the airline, the largest aluminum smelter in the Americas urges the Legault government to act.

The senior management of the company of some 900 employees spoke directly to Air Canada to express their “dissatisfaction” with the reliability and quality of its offer in the region, learned The Press. “Our employees and business partners are feeling the impact of the significant reduction in services,” wrote the vice-president of finance and administration in a letter dated 1^er March.

Charles-André Nadeau cites in his missive the “limitation of supply”, such as the end of the Sept-Îles-Québec link, the schedules “inflexible and poorly adapted to the reality of businesses” and the “recurrence of delays, postponements and flight cancellations without notice”.

Air Canada has offered since the post-pandemic recovery a single flight to Montreal at 5 a.m. and a return at 10:50 p.m.

These hazards cause “constant uncertainty” which now make it “a major challenge both for the smooth running [des] regular operations than for the implementation of some of our development projects”, argues Mr. Nadeau, who adds that the “negative effects” suffered affect, “more and more significantly, the course [des] business” of the company.

To date, the missive from the smelter has remained unanswered.

“What is beyond me is that I have had zero feedback to date,” lamented Mr. Nadeau in an interview with The Press. According to the company, Air Canada has thus given no priority to its advocacy in which it seeks the collaboration of the carrier in order to put in place “sustainable and profitable solutions for the entire North Shore”.

“Everyone here has to take charge and increase the pressure at the political level so that they get on the ice and help us solve our problem because Alouette, alone, cannot solve [le problème] », illustrates Mr. Nadeau.

The Minister of Transport, Geneviève Guilbault, and the Minister responsible for the North Shore, Kateri Champagne Jourdain, notably received a copy of the letter.

“We are sensitive to the situation experienced by the population and by our businesses in the regions of Quebec. We repeat, to better develop our economy, we must ensure a better connection of the regions between them, “said Ms.^me Guilbault in a statement. We are also assured that we will provide a written response to the smelter.

One in five flights canceled

Created in February, the new Standing Committee on Regional Air Transport, of which Air Canada is a member, is due to make its first recommendations on 1^er April 2024.

“I was surprised that we didn’t [veuille] not achieve results faster than that. This is a region that is currently being held hostage,” says Mr. Nadeau.

The economic community and the mayors of the North Shore are already mobilized. The Press reported at the end of March that despite the grand launch of $500 subsidized tickets by the Legault government last year, air service is worse than ever in the regions. Moreover, Quebec has no “accurate picture” of the reliability of regional service.¹

Data compiled by aerial data firm Cirium at the request of The Press revealed, as of March 30, that Air Canada has canceled nearly 19% of its flights since the start of the year at Sept-Îles airport. About 4 out of 10 flights also did not take off on time in Sept-Îles.

Air Canada did not respond to our request on Monday. In March, the carrier attributed the disruptions to the winter season, “during which the weather conditions are often more difficult”.

In the last Girard budget, Quebec reserved 10 million to extend emergency assistance to regional air carriers.

Effects on planning

According to the smelter, Air Canada flights are “regularly” canceled, which causes all sorts of headaches for the organization in its planning of projects and its communications with its five shareholders, based around the world.

“Lately, we had two shareholders who were unable to come [à Sept-Îles] because the flight was canceled, and the return for two others was very problematic. It becomes an irritant,” underlines Mr. Nadeau, who adds that the partners “are starting to be nervous about it.” There are factory tours that cannot be done in Zoomillustrates the company.

In addition, Alouette has on track a major project to refurbish two of its anode baking furnaces requiring investments of 170 million. Some 300 workers must be active at the height of the site this spring. The planning phase of the project, which intensified in September, was disrupted by the unreliability of air service and crews remained stuck in Sept-Îles.

“When the subcontractors who work for us experience situations like that, the more hotel nights, we are the ones who pay the bill,” explains Mr. Nadeau. For the time being, Aluminerie Alouette has not assessed the financial impacts related to the vagaries of air transport.