KD Air not flying

[tommywcom]

Has this been discussed here?

https://www.pqbnews.com/news/kd-air-fli ... rovements/

[CpnCrunch]

KD was sold by Lars in 2017. Lars had a very good reputation as a safe operator...I have no idea about the new owners.

Previously KD was the only Navajo operator I would have trusted to fly my family. Now I think Air Canada, Westjet and Harbour Air are the only reasonable options.

[jakeandelwood]

Strange how they just stopped and didn't give any of their customers refunds or any kind of reason.

[ahramin]

Maybe they don't have the money to do the refunds?

[FICU]

Sad! I remember flying in the Apache to Qualicum when I was very young.

[gooseinbc]

KD Air is just now saying they voluntarily ceased operations, however CTA website is saying the suspension was been initiated by the agency (TC) back on January 23rd. I wonder if they have continued selling non-refundable tickets in that time frame..

https://forms.otc-cta.gc.ca/licences/li ... enceID=436

[200hr Wonder]

Quite sad, Lars and Diane had KD Air dialed in and ran it well for years. They did not try to over expand, they stuck with a program that was safe and reliable. Infact they were the first commercial operation approved for GPS approaches in Canada! Not bad for a little Navajo operator. There schedule was carefully selected to avoid YVR rush periods, and get people to connecting flights.

Then along comes a new owner with great ideas and well it is clearly not working. Last I had heard Lars and Diane are 100% no longer involved.

[Dirty24.7]

I had some friends who worked there at the same time as I was at island express, which was coincidentally at the same time as the new ownership transition was happening. Most of them had/have nothing but good things to say about Lars and Diane. They had their moments, as any operator does but were apparently honest good people and made things run smooth.

The new ownership owns a maintenance company in pitt meadows so they had the bright idea of moving maintenance from qualicum to pitt meadows. (they dont even fly out of pitt meadows so this seems like a very logical move )
Apparently this is when things started turning to crap, like limping broken planes from qualicum/yvr to pitt meadows etc etc, they even stared asking pilots to pretty much start being shuttle drivers using their own cars where one pilot would take the plane single pilot from yvr to pitt meadows, and have the other one drive from yvr to ypk to bring the first pilot back to yvr, thinking paying for their gas would justify making a struggling pilot use their own car as a shuttle.
It got so bad where a pilots typical day could be one flight from yvr to ypk, sit there for 10+ hours and and then fly it back... or even worse take transit home.
I even heard a story of them making someone take the ferry from nanaimo to vancouver because they didnt want to pay for their accommodations for the night on the island or something like that.

It was hands down the most reputable navajo operator in BC and us island express guys would have made the switch at the drop of a hat under their old owership. The new owners pushed away alot of drivers who were hoping to stay for a little while longer and left because of the crap they started expecting them to do. Such a shame.

[Gear Jerker]

This is sad to see. For almost 30 years, while numerous other Navajo operators started up and failed or were shutdown by TC, Lars Di and Ketty plodded along and ran a safe, simple operation. Good people. I'm proud to have worked there for a few years and feel fortunate that it was part of my journey.

[jakeandelwood]

Why do people do this? I see it all the time, they buy a company that is has run like clock work for years, a company that was fine tuned by the previous owner from their experience. The new owners think they can make it better and or bigger and make all these changes right away then they wonder why it fails.

[ScottS]

There was a Qualicum Township boot on the KD Air shuttle in the airport parking lot when I was there last week.

[ahramin]

It's pretty obvious they owe money everywhere. The new owner says they are "securing funding". Maybe that means selling some Apollo memorabilia but I doubt it.

[trey kule]

There is another Navajo operator just started business in BC. Maybe an opportunity there for them.

[Zaibatsu]

With all due respect, the previous owners probably saw the writing on the wall with the way the pilot market was heading and cashed out. The current owners are The Greater Fools.

The Navajo operator is dying. All one has to do is look at all of Orcas planes rotting on the south side with no takers whatsoever except one new operator taking one of them, probably with someone else’s money.

[YVRLTN]

Heres some of the fleet at YPK, assume thats GXEY and PA32 GXUM in between - doesnt look too healthy.

[Rowdy]

There was a Qualicum Township boot on the KD Air shuttle in the airport parking lot when I was there last week.

Wasn't the Orca shuttle sitting there for a while with a Boot and chains on it too?