East Coast Airways

NS: Red tape delays launch of East Coast Airways
By Staff, Transcontinental Media

Source: The Cape Breton Post, November 24, 2010

[SYDNEY, NS] — The president of operations for East Coast Airways said an employee accidentally set Wednesday on its website as the launch date for flights between Halifax and four other Maritime destinations.

Jay Hasson said the newest regional carrier will take off from the runway on Thursday instead, despite a final audit by Transport Canada that morning.

“Somebody just put in the wrong date (on the website). It’s a basic error,” he said from Halifax, Tuesday. “We’re correcting that, actually, right at the moment.”

The company is offering flights to and from Halifax from Sydney, Yarmouth, Saint John and Charlottetown.

The airline had been expected to begin operations on Monday, however it’s still awaiting final approval from Transport Canada. It was the second false start for East Coast Airways, which originally advertised November 1 as its official launch date, and had to compensate passengers who had already booked flights on its website.

Hasson said if reservations are made for the Sydney to Halifax flight Thursday morning, he’s confident things will go according to plan.

“We are very confident that Thursday we’re OK,” he said. “If we have any bookings we’d be leaving out of Sydney on Thursday. We haven’t put any word out so we don’t anticipate any new bookings.”

Hasson added that “barring anything unforeseen”, the carrier will have planes in the sky on Thursday.

The carrier will service the Maritimes with about 20 flights a day using five 19-passenger BAE Jetstream 31 turboprop airplanes. The number of daily flights will increase in the spring to 36 or 38, Hasson said.