Aklak Air cancels Inuvik-Tuktoyaktuk flight service due to 'significant decline in demand'

Aklak Air says it's been forced to discontinueits long-running flight service to and from Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk, due to dying demandfor the service since the opening of the all-seasonhighway.

The Inuvik-Tuktoyaktukhighwayopened in November. Since then, "there has been a significant decline in the demand," the Inuvik-based airline wrote in a notice.

• ANALYSIS |AsInuvik-TuktoyaktukHighway opens, will the $300Mprice tag be worth it?

The airline ran threeflights a day in the summer months, and oneto twodaily in the winter. Ken Dalton, the company's general manager, couldn't remember exatly whenAklakstarted the route, but said "it's been a long time.

"It was our most frequent route," he said

Services are cut as of Friday, Feb. 9, according to the release. Dalton said the company is not considering layoffs at the moment, hoping that demand picks up on some of their other routes.

The airline said if the highway closes for a lengthy period of time in the future, it will consider operating flights for that duration.

"From all of us at AklakAir we'd like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their patronage on our Tuktoyaktuk route over the last number of decades," the airline wrote.

• Ice age steppe bison skull found near Tuktoyaktuk, N.W.T.
• 1st 'significant' accident on Inuvik-Tuktoyaktuk Highway