Air Tindi
AcquiredFounded 1988 · 170 employees on LinkedIn · 1 known investors
Air Tindi is a fixed-wing charter aviation company serving remote communities across Canada's North, offering services including cargo delivery, air ambulance, and remote logistics. It operates through partnerships with several Indigenous-owned organizations, conducting flight operations for companies, public bodies, and community projects involved in infrastructure, mining, exploration, and scheduled regional service.
Also known as Air Tindi Ltd.
Investors · 1
Company profile
researched Aug 2026Air Tindi is a regional airline headquartered in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada, operating scheduled passenger service, on-demand and contracted charters, cargo transport and medical evacuation flights across Northern Canada and, for charter work, within North America. Its main base is Yellowknife Airport, with a secondary hub at Fort Simpson Airport. The airline's name derives from the Tlicho (Dogrib) word "Tindi", meaning "big lake", a reference to Great Slave Lake.
The company flies a turboprop fleet suited to short, unprepared strips and extreme northern weather, configurable with wheels, tundra tires, skis or floats. Types include the DHC-7 Dash 7 combi (the company describes it as the world's largest fleet of Dash 7 combi aircraft), Dash 8-100 combi and Dash 8-300 extended range, DHC-6 Twin Otter, Cessna 208 Caravan on floats in summer, and Beechcraft King Air 250 and 350, with the King Air 250s operated exclusively in medevac configuration. Wikipedia lists 26 aircraft on the Transport Canada register and 19 on Air Tindi's own list as of April 2026, while Grokipedia reports a fleet of 15 aircraft (13 active) as of November 2025; a 2022 trade profile described 21 aircraft across six airframe designs. Air Tindi holds Transport Canada air operator certificate #3169 and operates under Canadian Aviation Regulations subparts 702, 703, 704 and 705, using IATA code 8T and ICAO code TIN.
Customer-facing service lines cover passenger and cargo combi flights, palletized and bulk cargo, bulk fuel delivery, mining exploration support, wildlife surveys, business and adventure travel, and medevac/air ambulance work. Air Tindi maintains a minority-held joint venture subsidiary, Tli Cho Air, which operates one aircraft for charter in the Tlicho region.
Founding story
Ray Baert and Evelyn Comrie founded a Yellowknife air charter operator named Raecom Air in 1978. A decade later, four members of the Arychuk family - brothers Alex and Peter and their wives Sheila and Teri, who had previously run Bathurst Inlet Air Services - acquired Raecom Air's assets and began operating as Air Tindi on 1 November 1988 with nine employees and three aircraft: a Cessna 185, a DHC-3 Otter and a leased DHC-6-100 Twin Otter. Alex was president, Sheila vice president of finance and administration, Peter vice president of marketing and Teri vice president of operations.
Business model
The airline sells air transport capacity directly to industrial, government, community and leisure customers through three revenue lines: contracted and ad hoc charter flights, medevac/air ambulance services, and scheduled passenger and cargo service. Ad hoc charters account for roughly half of the business, with contracted charters, air ambulance and scheduled services making up the remainder.
Revenue comes from charter contracts and ad hoc charter bookings, government-linked air ambulance contracts, and ticket and cargo sales on scheduled routes.
Traction
Approximately 250 employees as of 2025, up from nine at founding and over 180 seasonal peak staff in 2007. Air Tindi's ACCESS Air Ambulance partnership with Advanced Medical Solutions has served 33 NWT communities since 2007, and the company reported more than 75,000 accident-free medevac flight hours since 1988. Its seven DHC-6-300 Twin Otters typically fly about 1,200 hours per year each, and each King Air roughly 1,000 hours annually.
Latest developments
In December 2024, after Northwestern Air announced it would end scheduled flights, Air Tindi agreed to take over its routes and said it would acquire two Dash 8s to serve the Yellowknife-Fort Smith-Fort Chipewyan-Edmonton route. A Hay River-Edmonton route was added in September 2025, and new scheduled service to Fort Smith began in 2025. Scheduled service to Whati was suspended on 12 October 2025.
▸Full profile — market position, technology, go-to-market, geography, history, risks & controversies
Market position
Described as a leading air charter and scheduled service provider in Northern Canada and one of the NWT's principal air charter companies, operating the largest active fleet of DHC-7 Dash 7 aircraft worldwide. It took over scheduled routes vacated by Northwestern Air in December 2024.
Long-established northern operating experience, a STOL turboprop fleet including the largest fleet of Dash 7 combi aircraft, combi configurations enabling simultaneous passenger and cargo carriage to remote strips, 24/7 year-round availability, and Indigenous partnership structures in the territories it serves.
Technology
The operation is built on turboprop aircraft with short takeoff and landing capability able to use unpaved and short runways, with interchangeable landing gear (wheels, oversized tundra tires, skis and floats) for seasonal operation. Combi configurations on the Dash 7 and Dash 8-100 allow mixed passenger and freight loads; the Dash 7 carries up to 46 passengers with a 12,500 lb maximum payload. King Air 250 air ambulances are equipped for two stretcher patients and crewed by two pilots plus one or two critical care providers.
Go-to-market
Services are sold directly via the company's website and toll-free reservations line through charter and cargo quote requests and online scheduled-flight booking, supplemented by partnerships and joint ventures with regional and Indigenous organizations.
Mining, mineral exploration and development companies; remote and Indigenous northern communities; territorial and federal government bodies including health authorities requiring medevac; tourism and adventure travellers; and business charter clients. Historic customers cited include major diamond and base metal exploration and mining companies and the Governments of Canada and the Northwest Territories.
Geography
Headquartered in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, with hubs at Yellowknife Airport and Fort Simpson Airport. Scheduled destinations as of November 2025 include Yellowknife, Hay River, Fort Simpson, Fort Smith, Gameti, Wekweeti and Whati (service suspended 12 October 2025) in the Northwest Territories, plus Edmonton and Fort Chipewyan in Alberta; Edmonton serves as the southern gateway. Charter operations extend across the NWT, the Kitikmeot Region of Nunavut, and North America more broadly.
History
Air Tindi expanded by buying the Yellowknife assets of La Ronge Aviation Services in May 1990 and amalgamating with Latham Island Airways in March 1991, adding four aircraft. It bought its first turboprop, a STOL-capable DHC-6 Twin Otter, in 1990 with support from the Rae-Edzo Development Corporation, acquired a DHC-4 Caribou for mining re-supply in 1993, and added a DHC-7 Dash 7 in 1996. On 19 December 2006 the company was sold to Discovery Air, a TSX-listed holding company based in London, Ontario; corporate disagreements subsequently led Alex Arychuk to leave the presidency and the Discovery Air board. Under Discovery Air, Air Tindi ran an executive jet charter base in Calgary with three Learjet 35As and three Challenger 601s between 2012 and 2015. Discovery Air declared bankruptcy in March 2018 and Clairvest Group, a Toronto private equity firm and significant creditor, acquired Air Tindi shortly afterward and remains its owner. Over 34 years the company operated 81 aircraft across 30 distinct models according to the Canadian Civil Aircraft Register.
Risks & controversies
The airline has recorded several accidents: a DHC-3 Otter crash on 24 June 2005 near Yellowknife (all nine aboard survived); Flight 200, a Cessna 208B Grand Caravan, crashed on 4 October 2011 en route to Lutselk'e, killing two of four occupants; Flight 223, another Cessna 208B, crashed onto Great Slave Lake ice on 20 November 2014 with all six aboard surviving; a King Air 200 crashed near Whati on 30 January 2019, killing both crew, with the investigation finding both attitude indicators had failed; a company-owned Beechcraft 350 operated by the 8 Wing Multi Engine Utility Flight overran a runway at Thunder Bay in January 2022; and a DHC-6 Twin Otter suffered controlled flight into terrain near Lac de Gras in December 2023, with two of ten occupants seriously injured. The 2011 award of a Kitikmeot medevac contract to Air Tindi and partner Aqsaqniq was appealed by incumbent Adlair Aviation; the appeal was dismissed on 29 October 2011. Ownership has twice changed hands amid financial distress at the parent level, including Discovery Air's 2018 bankruptcy.
Compiled by commissioned research from 8 cited public sources — announcements, filings, and press listed under research sources below.
Key figures
latest reportedCompany-reported or press-reported figures, each dated to when it was claimed — not independently audited.
Timeline · 11
launches, deals, and filingsScheduled service to Whati Airport was suspended as of 12 October 2025.
Air Tindi added direct scheduled service between Hay River and Edmonton.
Air Tindi began scheduled service to Fort Smith following regional airline transitions in the Northwest Territories.
Following Northwestern Air's announcement that it would shut down scheduled flights, Air Tindi agreed to take over its routes and said it would acquire two Dash 8s to operate the Yellowknife-Fort Smith-Fort Chipewyan-Edmonton route.
After Discovery Air declared bankruptcy in March 2018, Toronto-based private equity firm Clairvest Group Inc., a significant creditor, acquired Air Tindi. Clairvest remains the owner as of November 2025.
Air Tindi's Calgary-based executive jet charter service, operated between 2012 and 2015, was discontinued.
Under Discovery Air ownership, Air Tindi opened a base in Calgary operating an executive jet charter service with three Learjet 35As and three Challenger 601s; the operation ran until 2015.
The Government of Nunavut awarded Air Tindi and partner Aqsaqniq a contract to provide medevac services in the Kitikmeot Region. An appeal by incumbent Adlair Aviation was dismissed on 29 October 2011.
Discovery Air Inc. announced the commencement of formal due diligence on Air Tindi, then operating 22 fixed-wing aircraft and employing over 180 people during the peak summer season.
Air Tindi's air ambulance division began serving 33 NWT communities together with Advanced Medical Solutions under the ACCESS Air Ambulance (Aeromedical Critical Care Emergency Services Specialists) partnership.
The Arychuk family sold Air Tindi to Discovery Air, a publicly traded (TSX: DA.A) holding company based in London, Ontario. Alex Arychuk later left the presidency and the Discovery Air board following corporate disagreements.
Dated company events from announcements, filings, and press; legal rows summarize public dockets and regulator releases.
▸Research sources · 8
primary sources listed
- Air Tindiairtindi.com · web
8 public sources were cited for this profile; the first-party ones are listed here.
Frequently asked questions
- What does Air Tindi do?
- Yellowknife-based regional airline providing charter, scheduled, cargo and medevac flights across Canada's North.
- Who are Air Tindi's investors?
- Air Tindi's investors include Clairvest Group Inc.