Starlink's final flights touching down

By Tina Comeau and Michael Gorman

After announcing last week that air service was being suspended, Starlink Aviation’s final flights flying in and out of the Yarmouth airport are happening today, Monday, Nov. 30, with the last flight scheduled to touch down around 7:30 p.m. this evening.

Brenda Libby, the airline’s regional sales manager, said on Monday morning that company president and CEO Glen Lynch had flown into Halifax last night for a meeting with the province’s economic development minister today to discuss the future of the service. She said the Quebec-based company still wants to operate in southwestern Nova Scotia. “We, Starlink, love it here,” she said, adding the airline was entering what it felt could potentially be a busy winter season. “We think this would have been a time when our Halifax run would have picked up tremendously because of the weather concerns,” she said, whereby people would opt to fly instead of drive.

In a surprise announcement last Thursday, Starlink Aviation suspended operations out of Yarmouth. The company, which started operating service between Yarmouth, Halifax and Portland, Maine last February, said in a release that it made the decision following word from the Yarmouth International Airport Corporation (YIAC) that the $2 million development fund administered by the province would run out by Nov. 25.

The news was surprising, and baffling, since little more than a month ago Martin Pink, chairman of the YIAC, said the group was able to slow the burn rate of the fund thanks to a reduced fall schedule and should be able to make it to the New Year. David Rankin, executive director of the YIAC, said the quick change in the fund’s financial outlook was the result of unexpected charges received from Starlink. He wouldn’t elaborate on what those charges are, calling them (an internal business matter between (the YIAC) and Starlink.” “We’ve been working with them on resolving those issues but that could take several weeks to do,” said Rankin. “If we were to pay those out in full, at this point in time the fund would be depleted.” Rankin said that rather than taking a chance and running into the red, the YIAC decided to deal with the expenses now while there was still money with which to do so.

The provincial fund, which was announced last February at the same time as the air service, was a $2 million development fund that was supposed to help Starlink bridge the gap between the launch of the service and its establishment in the community and beyond.

The province’s Minister of Economic Development, Percy Paris, said last Friday his department was aware months ago that the fund was getting low. In fact, Paris was so concerned about the burn rate of the fund that more than a month ago he wrote a letter to Starlink officials expressing his concern about the depletion rate and asking about plans to rein it in. Paris said he is especially concerned that a fund that was intended to help the company operate for a span of four or five years, could be used up in less than a year.

Rankin said there is no reason to believe there can’t be future activity at the airport. The present situation, he said, is simply a case of the provincial fund running out and Starlink officials making a business decision not to continue service. The YIAC is engaged in talks with other carriers about establishing some kind of service at the airport, said Rankin.

For it’s part, Starlink said that it was the one surprised to receive word that the provincial fund had been depleted. Libby said they were caught off guard after having been told previously, and recently, that the funding would be there until January. However knowing that the funding was not going to last forever, she said last Thursday that the company was working on ways to secure other additional funding, which would have still come from government coffers. And, she says, the company was being proactive in sending letters about the service and trying set up meetings with government officials to talk further about the service and its potential.

Asked about the unexpected additional charges from the airline that the YIAC speaks of, Libby said last week, “We do not wish to engage in a public debate other than to say that there have been no additional billings and in fact we have reduced our charges from the formal agreement in an attempt to stretch the fund.”

Libby said last week that the airline was committed to making the service work, while having to cope with hurdles such as flight cancellations due to fog, blocked flights and changes to scheduling. And there was also the added challenge of seeing people change their travel habits. But, she said, public feedback and bookings were encouraging. “We had no data coming into this. What data there was, was 10 years old and that’s not any good for us. But we have nine months of data today that shows we have a viable and needed product,” she said.

For Yarmouth MLA Richard Hurlburt, there has been no file dearer to his heart than trying to revive regular scheduled air service in and out of the Yarmouth airport. Needless to say, he wasn’t happy to hear the news that the air service has been suspended. He says that’s concerning for the entire transportation picture in Yarmouth County. “Without transportation links in southwest Nova, to grow our economy it’s very, very tough,” Hurlburt said. “This was a file I really wanted to see work in Yarmouth. But you have to have time to change the mindset of people. People are so accustomed to getting in their cars and driving to Halifax, and if you look at (Starlink’s) numbers, the Halifax leg was the one that was the weakest. The Portland run was doing not bad at all.”

He called it “a real sin” that air service has been suspended and said the longer the area goes without air service the more it hurts the region.

Meanwhile, passengers who have been displaced by the suspension of air service will have their money refunded to them.