One of Air Inuit Boeing 737-200s (C-GMAI) taken in Montreal. CLICK FOR LARGER.

Air Inuit was founded in November 1978 and is based in Dorval, Quebec, Canada. The airline operates north — way north into Nunavik and Nunavut. Many of their destinations are isolated and cut off from the rest of the world. The airline becomes an integral part of many communities being able to survive.

When Air Inuit started operating up north, there was almost no aviation infrastructure and the airline had to get creative. From their website:

“When we first began flying to remote communities along our coasts, we faced many unique challenges. In the beginning, winter ice strips were built with community participation. In summer, improvised tundra strips had to be marked out. Dispatchers or pilots often radioed ahead, alerting the people to illuminate the community’s landing strip with the headlights of their ATV’s or snowmobiles.”

Today, Air Inuit operates a diverse fleet of older aircraft including the: DHC6 Twin Otter, Avro 748, Boeing 737-200 combi (be sure to catch the ski gravel deflector on the front landing gear), Dash 8 and King Air.

The photo shown on this post highlights Air Inuit’s new “goose livery.” Their older livery was not too shabby with some simple lines, but this new one is pretty darn slick and the orange really stands out against the snow.

Are you able to see the three geese on the tail?

Edit: Thanks to reader Ken Fielding for pointing out the gravel deflector not being a ski, “Airlines operating regularly into gravel strips, as Air Inuit do, fit them to stop the nosewheel kicking up stones which can be ingested by the engines.  Quite a few MD-80’s had them fitted too for the same reason.”

Image: J P Gosselin