Omicron temporarily downs Canada’s Pacific Coastal Airlines

Pacific Coastal Airlines (8P, Vancouver Int’l) has suspended all scheduled flights for two days until January 4, 2022, amid an outbreak of the Omicron COVID-19 variant at the airline.

In a short statement, the company announced it had downed operations on January 2 and January 3 “due to the rapid transmission of the Omicron COVID-19 variant we are experiencing in our operational control centre”.

Impacted customers would be provided with the opportunity to be rescheduled at a later date or receive a complete refund.

Scheduled flights would resume on Tuesday, January 4, the company said.

“Our teams have exhausted all options and resources before the decision was made to suspend operations for these two days. It breaks my heart to be impacting the travel plans of so many customers, yet we are left with no viable alternative at this time,” says Pacific Coastal Airlines’ President Quentin Smith. “We are taking this quick and necessary measure to protect the integrity of our long term schedule and safeguard our operation.”

The privately-owned regional airline operates from Vancouver Int’l to 17 airports in British Columbia. It also connects to additional destinations along the south coast of British Columbia through its affiliate airline Wilderness Seaplanes (Port Hardy), located in Port Hardy on northern Vancouver Island. Pacific Coastal also operates for WestJet (WS, Calgary) under the WestJet Link brand, connecting smaller communities in Alberta and British Columbia.

According to the ch-aviation fleets advanced module, the airline operates a fleet of three S340As (currently inactive), three S340Bs, and three S340B(Plus)s.