Major northern Sask. charter flight service grounding fleet for good

A major air charter service for northern Saskatchewan is grounding its planes for good.

Osprey Wings, a family-run charter flight service that covers La Ronge and northern parts of the province, is in the process of closing down.

Allison Thompson takes care of the office management and accounting parts of the business. She’s also the daughter of the business’s co-owners.

Now that the company’s last float planes are out of the water, Thompson said it won’t be putting anything on skis for the winter.

“It’s a family business. My parents, Gary and Bonnie, started it in the late ’60s,” she said. “As we are all aging — my parents are now 82 — we’ve just become in a situation where we feel it’s difficult for all of us to put in the same effort that we have in the past to maintain the level of service that we’ve been doing.”

Thompson said the company flies a lot of customers in various industries, including more than 200 private cabins, tourist camps and trapline cabins. It has also flown a lot of canoeists and a fair number of exploration passengers.

Thompson said some of the customers have been flying with the airline for more than 40 years.

“We’ve built great friendships with the people that we fly for over the years,” she said. “It’s sad. It’s a lifetime that we’ve been doing this … It’s who we are.”

Thompson said closing has been a long process, with the family concerned about finding something for their customers as well as their staff. Thompson said they consider their employees as close as family.

They’re doing their best, she said, and it’s difficult, but they’re doing their best to hopefully get something that works for everybody.

“We’re hoping that someone will take over where we left off,” Thompson said.