Safety

Nolinor Aviation is the only carrier approved by Transport Canada for maintenance on its entire Boeing 737 fleet. With over three decades of experience, our dedicated team excels in providing seamless and efficient service, ensuring your flights remain on schedule. Our in-house maintenance solutions are specially designed to ensure the highest safety and reliability of our fleet.

Located in Mirabel, our facilities and our qualified team offer complete support for all the heavy and specialized maintenance work required. Our unwavering commitment to quality maintenance has always earned us the esteemed reputation for having the "best on-time departure rate" in the northern regions.

Localizer Performance with Vertical guidance (LPV) is an approach that uses top-level instrumentation during landings. In order to comply with this (non-compulsory) standard, Nolinor Aviation has installed the latest generation GPS to ensure that crews have access to the most accurate information during landings. This way, Nolinor Aviation is able to reduce the number of unsuccessful approaches and avoid costly alternate flights for its customers. The addition of this avionics system represents an investment of over $400,000 per aircraft.

Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) systems technology uses communication satellites to inform traffic controllers of the location of our aircraft when they are outside control zones. In northern regions, the presence of this system on Nolinor Aviation aircraft allows us to monitor our flights as if they were in a radar area. What’s more, since we are now able to use preferred routes, our fuel costs have fallen.

Today, real-time communications are a necessary prerequisite to air safety. A number of years ago, Nolinor Aviation decided to equip its aircraft with a two-way communication system supported worldwide via satellite. This system allows us not only to communicate with our aircraft in real time, but also to know the exact location of every aircraft in flight. Nolinor Aviation is currently working with SkyTrac Systems Ltd. to develop a module that will also be able to monitor over 150 other flight parameters (flight data monitoring), such as engine performance and fuel consumption, in order to detect premature failures.

The farther north the destination or the alternate airport, the greater the risk of indication errors related to magnetic north. Nolinor Aviation fleets are equipped with navigational instruments that address this potential source of errors and ensure a higher safety level. This feature is included in our aircraft’s flight management system and represents an investment of more than $200,000 per airplane.

To cope with rough conditions on dirt airstrips in the Far North, our Boeing 737-200 aircraft have been modified and certified to minimize the possibility of gravel ingestion in the engines. The front is fitted with a gravel deflector to propel the stones toward the ground, and other changes have also been made to the front of the engines. Installation and certification represent an investment of over $500,000 per aircraft.

In addition to the equipment and systems that have been installed on our aircraft, over the years Nolinor Aviation has developed the tools required to ensure reliability and safety of all flights. Below are a few examples.

In addition to more than 24 specialized courses on a range of topics related to our operations, Nolinor Aviation pilots must undergo 12 hours of B737-200 simulator training every six months; Transport Canada-designated pilots evaluate their skills every 6 months, once in a simulator and then on an actual flight. This training is both practical and theoretical and is designed to cover all normal and emergency procedures that may arise on board the aircraft in flight or on the ground. A team of six instructors ensure that training is kept up to date based on the most recent information available.

Regulatory requirements require airline pilots to undergo periodic simulator training to ensure their qualifications remain current and valid. Without a flight simulator, airlines would have to conduct in-flight training, which would be expensive and would not reflect the full range of flight conditions.

In 2020, Nolinor acquired two flight simulators to meet its current and future pilot training needs. This investment allows Nolinor Aviation to prove its expertise in the operation of Boeing 737-200 aircrafts once again.

In addition to having dedicated training experts on our team, Nolinor Aviation is the only carrier in the world to have flight simulators (SIM) for its Boeing 737-200 fleet. One such simulator is currently operated by Panam Aviation in Florida.

Although there is no requirement to have a mechanical engineer on board every flight, for a number of years, Nolinor Aviation has retained a dedicated employee to oversee the diverse systems onboard. In the event of a mechanical issue in a remote location, a certified engineer is on standby, equipped with spare parts to address a variety of situations. This approach enables Nolinor Aviation to respond promptly to most emergencies and thereby avoid long delays for passengers.

Nolinor Aviation stands out among specialized air transport companies by offering a Type A dispatch service, ensuring continuous flight tracking 24/7. A team of dispatchers, certified according to Transport Canada requirements, validates all flight information provided to crews. We can track our flights in real time anywhere in the world.

Nolinor Aviation’s Safety Management System (SMS) allows us identify safety risks before they become bigger problems. Transport Canada regulations require aviation companies to implement an SMS for additional protection as part of their risk management strategy.

Nolinor Aviation has achieved Basic Aviation Risk Standard (BARS) registration. BARS is an international air safety operating standard that is widely used in the mining industry and for humanitarian flights. To obtain BARS registration, our operations had to pass an audit covering more than 275 points. The certification process has brought Nolinor Aviation new business from safety-conscious customers.

The presence of a quality assurance officer during aircraft maintenance is a regulatory requirement. At Nolinor Aviation, we understand the benefits of such a system, and we have created an equivalent position in flight operations. Our QA officer validates quality assurance for operations and verifies compliance of our operational systems.

Every flight involves a great deal of information. To ensure that this information is reliably communicated to our crews and customers, we have created the Flight Data System (FDS). Among other tasks, the system automatically communicates departure and arrival times for all flights and also sends our customers automated monthly reports, including performance indicators.