Community spirit leads to success at Calm Air
Jesse Normore had just started working as a customer service agent for Calm Air International, the regional airline headquartered in Winnipeg, when he wanted to make a change. Based in The Pas, he was working part-time as the airline does just one flight a day into the airport.
“The craziest thing was that a month after I started, I realized I wasn’t working enough. I wanted to be there full time,” Normore says. And Calm Air came through. Normore talked to his supervisor and got posted to cover the desk in Flin Flon. In three months, he was working full-time.
Calm Air occupies a unique niche among Canadian airlines, flying in and out of Winnipeg to destinations like The Pas and Flin Flon, as well as Churchill, Thompson, Rankin Inlet, Gillam, Naujaat, Coral Harbour and other routes in the north of the province and Nunavut. It demands a different attitude and set of skills than an average airline.
Tim Kroeker, vice president of maintenance at Calm Air, talks about the crews he sends to do maintenance on planes in northern locations, which requires special equipment such as heaters when working in extreme temperatures.
“Our employees look after each other,” he says. “We value safety first and foremost and our employees encounter unique challenges working in the North. Polar bear safety is something we have to consider, as well as the environment and low temperatures. We need to ensure our employees know how to handle these types of situations and are equipped with the right protective equipment and have received appropriate training.”
Normore describes the personal touch that’s at the heart of the airline’s workplace culture, in which staff provide “a curb-to-curb service where a lot of passengers are elderly or flying for the first time.”
His job involves sometimes meeting passengers at their car and answering questions and booking flights from the check-in counter. “They’re talking to the person they’re going to see that’s going to be checking them in. It comes down to that community feel. We know a lot of our customers because we have lots of regular fliers and we know their needs.”
Kroeker stresses the importance of community. “It’s absolutely vital in the North to be connected in the communities. Everybody works together when it’s minus 40 out and you’re trying to fix an airplane. You sometimes need a hand, and you sometimes lend a hand to the people around you.”
With this in mind, Calm Air works hard to retain employees and strives to promote internally as it expands its routes. Kroeker began working part-time as an apprentice at the airline when he was studying to become an aircraft maintenance engineer in Winnipeg and was hired full-time when he graduated. Now, years later, he leads the entire maintenance department.
“I was always given the opportunity to take on projects and challenges that were outside my scope,” he says. “You’d get projects thrown your way that you’d get to tackle and learn. And you can work with other people in other departments which really helps you grow as an employee and in your own career.”
Normore says that the company’s success “comes down to the people we hire. We do want to bring on locals who know their home base and want to stay around their towns. Once we hire them on, they stay. The longevity is unbelievable.”