Hello. Thank you for inviting me here today. My name is Jeff Stout, and I'm the president and chief operating officer of North Star Air. This is my first time engaging with parliamentarians, and it's a distinct honour to be here today.

Ottawa often seems so far away from home in Thunder Bay and from the communities we work with on a daily basis, so I'm excited to be here and share some of our insights about the north with you.

North Star Air is a unique airline to me. It's special because my father started it as a family business over 25 years ago. As a family, we've worked hard to grow this airline and ensure we could continue to serve northern communities. In 2013, when it became abundantly clear that my dream of becoming an NHL goalie was not going to happen, I joined the company as a ramp hand, loading airplanes in Pickle Lake, the northernmost road-accessible community in Ontario.

Over the last 11 years, we've grown from a team of 40 to over 320 strong and have tripled our fleet size to 21 aircraft today. As part of this journey, we finalized a deal in 2017 with the North West Company, which now wholly owns us. Our success story can be attributed to our community-minded approach. Our growth introduced competition into our markets and let community members vote with their dollars. Today, we are proud to have revenue-sharing agreements and partnerships with 12 first nations. We offer passenger service to 14 communities in northern Ontario and compete with other regional airlines on over half of those routes. We also compete with other carriers for chartered passenger aircraft services.

The rest of our services are dedicated to cargo and bulk fuel deliveries. We provide freight service, bringing fresh produce and essential retail goods to over 50 communities in northern Ontario, northern Manitoba and Nunavut. This is why the North West Company acquired us, to fill in critical logistics gaps. Although it is important to note that we operate separately and distinctly from the North West Company's stores, our freight business services all retailers, including community stores. We have competition from other providers on the majority of our routes, despite the small market size.

Operating in the north comes with substantial challenges, and I believe parliamentarians and government can help northern communities address them. Approximately 10% of our flights are cancelled before we even depart, because of infrastructure deficiencies in the north, including lack of precision approaches, the scarcity of de-icing equipment and the lack of precise weather reporting. This means our flights cannot land in bad weather conditions, which you can imagine are quite frequent in the north. Most northern airport authorities do not provide de-icing services, and storage space is limited or unavailable, which is a safety risk that seriously impacts our operations. High cancellation rates mean we must be careful about our levels of aircraft utilization. I believe this committee has heard quite a bit about the impacts of the flight and duty time regulations. Those have required us to hire 13% more pilots to maintain the same level of aircraft utilization as pre-regulation.

Other airlines are taking similar steps, thus creating a domino effect within the industry whereby more pilots are required to complete the same number of flights. This market dynamic has subsequently resulted in an increased price of operations. Over the last three years, we have seen pilot costs alone increase by over 30%. While we provide bursaries to community members interested in becoming pilots, we believe the government can do more to incentivize others to enter the profession.

My family grew this business out of a love for the north, and that guides how we operate today. We try to give back through these bursaries. We've launched a recycling program to help communities with their waste management. We have the community partnerships fund, which has resulted in tangible infrastructure and economic growth in the communities we partner with. We are fully committed to the north. Our commitment means that it is critical for us to control costs and ensure that flights land safely and on time. We are an essential lifeline for the communities we serve and want to be an enabler in social and economic prosperity in the north. This means making sure we can help people reach doctors' appointments, travel for educational opportunities, and access fresh and healthy produce.

I recognize the committee members may have questions about our unique operating environment or the challenges we face. I look forward to answering your questions and appreciate your collective interest in supporting the north.

Thank you again for this opportunity to share our story with you.