The History of Air North

Air North was founded in 1977 by Joe Sparling and Tom Wood as Air North Charter and Training. Joe and Tom's original intent was to offer charter flights to the mining industry and flight training services—but it didn't take long for us to grow beyond that original vision—and Joe can still be found in the cockpit more often than he’s in the office.

By the early 1980s, our fleet had grown from a single Cessna 206 to include a variety of aircraft on wheels, floats, and skis—until we acquired the famous and world-tested Douglas DC-3 and DC-4 aircraft. 

Just over ten years later the Douglas aircraft were retired in favour of Hawker Siddeley 748 turboprops, and the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation of Old Crow expressed an interest in investing in Air North. The investment from the Vuntut Gwitchin made it possible a few years later, in 2002, for us to enter a whole new era with the purchase of two Boeing 737 jets.

In June of 2002, we began flying between Whitehorse and Vancouver, and also connected the Yukon to Alberta with flights to Calgary and Edmonton. Our growth was mirrored in new branding, as we adopted our current operating name: Air North, Yukon's Airline.

Since then, we've purchased more aircraft and modernized our fleet with Boeing 737-400 and -500 jets and ATR 42 turboprops. Between 2013 and 2019 we added Kelowna, Yellowknife, Ottawa, Mayo and Victoria to our network.

Read more about the history of Air North in our 40 Year story.