Pacific Coastal Airlines is an airline

Airline

An airline provides air transport services for traveling passengers and freight. Airlines lease or own their aircraft with which to supply these services and may form partnerships or alliances with other airlines for mutual benefit...

 based in Richmond, British Columbia

Richmond, British Columbia

Richmond is a coastal city, incorporated in the Canadian province of British Columbia. Part of Metro Vancouver, its neighbouring communities are Vancouver and Burnaby to the north, New Westminster to the east, and Delta to the south, while the Strait of Georgia forms its western border...

, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

. It operates scheduled, charter and cargo services to destinations in British Columbia

British Columbia

British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...

. Its main base is Vancouver International Airport

Vancouver International Airport

Vancouver International Airport is located on Sea Island in Richmond, British Columbia, Canada, about from Downtown Vancouver. In 2010 it was the second busiest airport in Canada by aircraft movements and passengers , behind Toronto Pearson International Airport, with non-stop flights daily to...

, with a hub at Port Hardy Airport

Port Hardy Airport

Port Hardy Airport, , is located southeast of Port Hardy, British Columbia, Canada.The airport is classified as an airport of entry by NAV CANADA and is staffed by the Canada Border Services Agency. CBSA officers at this airport currently can handle general aviation aircraft only, with no more...

.

History

The airline was established in 1979 by the merger of Powell Air and the Port Hardy

Port Hardy, British Columbia

Port Hardy is a district municipality in British Columbia, Canada located on the north-eastern coast of Vancouver Island. Port Hardy has a population of 3822 at last census...

 division of Air BC

Air BC

Air BC was an airline headquartered in Richmond, British Columbia, Canada. It is now part of Air Canada Jazz.- History :Air BC was established in 1980 after the merger of a number of west coast domestic airlines: Canadian Air Transit, Flight Operation, Gulf Air Aviation, Haida Airlines, Island...

. It acquired the shares and assets of Wilderness Airlines on 1 April 1998. It has 300 employees (at March 2007).

Destinations

Pacific Coastal Airlines operates services to the following destinations in British Columbia:

• Anahim Lake
  Anahim Lake, British Columbia
  Anahim Lake is a small community in the Canadian province of British Columbia. Its name, and the name of the associated lake, in the Tsilhqot'in language, is Tl'etinqox. The village and surrounding areas have a population of approximately 1500. The Ulkatcho First Nation has 729 living on nearby...
  
  
• Bella Bella
  Bella Bella, British Columbia
  Bella Bella, also known as Waglisla, is an unincorporated community and Indian Reserve community located within Bella Bella Indian Reserve No. 1 on the east coast of Campbell Island in the Central Coast region of British Columbia, Canada. Bella Bella is located north of Port Hardy, on Vancouver...
  
  
• Bella Coola
  Bella Coola, British Columbia
  Bella Coola is a community of approximately 600 at the western extremity of the Bella Coola Valley. Bella Coola usually refers to the entire valley, encompassing the settlements of Bella Coola proper , Lower Bella Coola, Hagensborg, Saloompt, Nusatsum, Firvale and Stuie...
  
  
• Campbell River
  Campbell River, British Columbia
  Campbell River is a coastal city in British Columbia on the east coast of Vancouver Island at the south end of Discovery Passage, which lies along the important coastal Inside Passage shipping route...
  
  
• Comox
  Comox, British Columbia
  Comox is a town of 12,000 people located on a small peninsula in the Georgia Strait on the eastern coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia. The warm dry summers, mild winters, fertile soil and abundant sea life attracted First Nations thousands of years ago, who called the area kw’umuxws...
  
  
• Cranbrook
  Cranbrook, British Columbia
  Cranbrook, British Columbia is a city in southeast British Columbia, located on the west side of the Kootenay River at its confluence with the St. Mary's River, It is the largest urban centre in the region known as the East Kootenay. As of 2006, Cranbrook's population is 18,267, and the...
  
  
• Klemtu
  Klemtu, British Columbia
  Klemtu is a small village on Swindle Island in the coastal fjords of British Columbia, Canada.Klemtu is the home of the Kitasoo tribe of Tsimshians, originally from Kitasu Bay, and the Xai'xais of Kynoc Inlet, a subgroup of the Heiltsuk people. These two tribes live together as, and are jointly...
  
  
• Masset
  Masset, British Columbia
  Masset , formerly Massett, is a village in Haida Gwaii in British Columbia, Canada. It is located on the northern coast of Graham Island, the largest island in the archipelago, and is approximately west of mainland British Columbia. It is the western terminus of the Yellowhead Highway...
  
  
• Port Hardy
  Port Hardy, British Columbia
  Port Hardy is a district municipality in British Columbia, Canada located on the north-eastern coast of Vancouver Island. Port Hardy has a population of 3822 at last census...
  
  
• Powell River
  Powell River, British Columbia
  Powell River is a city on the northern Sunshine Coast of southwestern British Columbia, Canada. Most of its population lives near the eastern shores of Malaspina Strait, that part of the larger Georgia Strait between Texada Island and the Mainland...
  
  
• Trail
  Trail, British Columbia
  Trail is a city in the West Kootenay region of the Interior of British Columbia, Canada.-Geography:Trail has an area of . The city is located on both banks of the Columbia River, approximately 10 km north of the United States border. This section of the Columbia River valley is located between the...
  
  
• Vancouver
  Vancouver
  Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...
  
  
• Victoria
  Victoria, British Columbia
  Victoria is the capital city of British Columbia, Canada and is located on the southern tip of Vancouver Island off Canada's Pacific coast. The city has a population of about 78,000 within the metropolitan area of Greater Victoria, which has a population of 360,063, the 15th most populous Canadian...
  
  
• Williams Lake
  Williams Lake, British Columbia
  Williams Lake, is a city in the Central Interior of British Columbia, Canada. Located in the central part of a region known as the Cariboo, it is the largest urban centre between Kamloops and Prince George, with a population of 11,150 in city limits....
  
  

Terminated Destinations

• Calgary
  Calgary
  Calgary is a city in the Province of Alberta, Canada. It is located in the south of the province, in an area of foothills and prairie, approximately east of the front ranges of the Canadian Rockies...
  
  
• Kamloops
• Penticton
• Terrace
  Terrace, British Columbia
  Terrace is a city on the Skeena River in British Columbia, Canada. The Kitselas people, a tribe of the Tsimshian Nation, have lived in the Terrace area for thousands of years. The community population fell between 2001 and 2006 from 12,109 with a regional population of 19,980 to 11,320 and...
  
  

Incidents and accidents

• On November 28, 2007 a Short 360 aircraft landing in Victoria International Airport reported that the cockpit landing gear light was not indicating that the gear had fully deployed. The aircraft returned and landed at Vancouver International Airport without incident.

• On August 3, 2008, a Grumman Goose
  Grumman Goose
  The Grumman G-21 Goose amphibious aircraft was designed as an eight-seat "commuter" plane for businessmen in the Long Island area. The Goose was Grumman’s first monoplane to fly, its first twin-engined aircraft, and its first aircraft to enter commercial airline service...
  
   aircraft with seven passengers and crew crashed during a flight from Port Hardy to Chamiss Bay. The aircraft was completely destroyed by a fire. There were only two survivors.

• On November 16, 2008 a Grumman Goose
  Grumman Goose
  The Grumman G-21 Goose amphibious aircraft was designed as an eight-seat "commuter" plane for businessmen in the Long Island area. The Goose was Grumman’s first monoplane to fly, its first twin-engined aircraft, and its first aircraft to enter commercial airline service...
  
   aircraft with 8 passengers and crew crashed during a flight from Vancouver International Airport to Toba Inlet, BC. The plane exploded into a mass of burning wreckage according to the lone survivor. This person was rescued up by the Coast Guard on South Thormanby Island off British Columbia's Sunshine Coast
  Sunshine Coast, British Columbia
  The Sunshine Coast is a region of the southern mainland coast of British Columbia, on the eastern shore of the Strait of Georgia, and just northwest of Greater Vancouver...
  
  .

Fleet

As of August 2010, the Pacific Coastal Airlines fleet consisted of 24 aircraft:

Pacific Coastal Airlines

Aircraft	Count	Variants	Notes
Saab 340 Saab 340 The Saab 340 is a discontinued Swedish two-engine turboprop aircraft designed and initially produced by a partnership between Saab and Fairchild Aircraft in a 65:35 ratio...	6	340A	30 passengers, based in Vancouver
Shorts 360 Shorts 360 The Short 360 is a commuter aircraft built by Short Brothers. The Short 360 seats up to 36-39 passengers and was introduced into service in 1981. It is a larger version of the Short 330.-Development:...	2	360-100	33 passengers, based in Vancouver
Beechcraft 1900 Beechcraft 1900 The Beechcraft 1900 is a 19-passenger, pressurized twin-engine turboprop airplane manufactured by the Beechcraft Division of the Raytheon Company . It was designed, and is primarily used, as a regional airliner...	7	1900C	19 passengers, based in Vancouver
Beechcraft Super King Air Beechcraft Super King Air The Beechcraft Super King Air family is part of a line of twin-turboprop aircraft produced by the Beech Aircraft Corporation . The King Air line comprises a number of model series that fall into two families: the Model 90 series, Model 100 series , Model 200 series and Model 300 series...	1	200	11 passengers, based in Vancouver
Grumman Goose Grumman Goose The Grumman G-21 Goose amphibious aircraft was designed as an eight-seat "commuter" plane for businessmen in the Long Island area. The Goose was Grumman’s first monoplane to fly, its first twin-engined aircraft, and its first aircraft to enter commercial airline service...	4		9 passengers, based in Port Hardy
de Havilland Canada DHC-2 Beaver De Havilland Canada DHC-2 Beaver The de Havilland Canada DHC-2 Beaver is a single-engined, high-wing, propeller-driven, STOL aircraft developed by de Havilland Canada, primarily known as a bush plane. It is used for cargo and passenger hauling, aerial application , and has been widely adopted by armed forces as a utility aircraft...	4		5 passengers, based in Port Hardy