Harbour Air to add three flight routes Monday

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) — Harbour Air is adding three more routes this coming Monday, meaning you will now be able to fly between Richmond and Vancouver Island, as well as Vancouver and Maple Bay.

Executive Director Chad Wetsch assures passengers all proper health precautions are being taken.

“Harbour Air is taking all the necessary steps from what we’ve known from leadership – Transport Canada, B.C. government, federal government—to ensure staff and guest safety,” says Wetsch.

Safety measures include a 40 per cent reduction in seating and requiring mandatory health declarations from passengers before boarding. Masks, gloves, and hand sanitizer will be provided to each passenger. The company also plans to only use its larger Otter aircrafts to help with physical distancing.

“Then we’ve also implemented—for the staff side—the plastic guards at the counters, touchless payments. We’ve increased our limit so we can do a round-trip with the tap,” says Wetsch.

He also explains that more cleaning and sanitizing is taking place, including luggage handles once baggage has been checked. All ground and flight crew have their temperature taken when arriving and leaving the workplace.

Harbour Air has been operating routes out of Vancouver to Victoria, Nanaimo, Sechelt, and Salt Spring Island since May 11, 2020, after a brief two-week shutdown. Wetsch explains that these were labelled “essential travel,” but that the company wanted to take extra time before adding other routes.

“Some of our seasonal routes, we didn’t start up and haven’t started up yet, knowing that it’s probably not essential travel,” says Wetsch. However, with Phase 3 of B.C.’s Restart Plan beginning Monday, Harbour Air felt the necessary measures were in place.

The company plans to add two more routes later in June.