Канаданың "Kenn Borek Air" әуе компаниясы

Airline based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Kenn Borek Air is an airline based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. It operates regional passenger and cargo services, contract operations in the Arctic and Antarctic and aircraft leasing. Its main base is at Calgary International Airport. It charters aircraft for scientific expeditions, oil exploration, etc., and operates air ambulance services.

The airline was established in 1966 as Vic Turner Ltd which operated a single de Havilland Canada DHC 6 Twin Otter providing air support for oil exploration activities in the Canadian Arctic. Renamed Kenn Borek Air after being purchased by Borek Construction in 1971, the company acquired the Aklavik Flying Services which was founded in April 1947 by Michael Zubko operating a single Aeronca Champion at that time. In 1975 Kenn Borek acquired Kenting Atlas Aviation. Kenting Atlas Aviation had been formed in 1972 with the purchase of Weldy Phipps's Atlas Aviation (established in 1962) by Kenting Aviation. This was the second iteration of the Atlas Aviation name, the first evolving out of the renaming of McGuire Flying School at Uplands Airport, Ottawa, Ontario formed in 1946 by Hugh McGuire. The company has been operating in Antarctica since 1985. On 26 April 2001, Kenn Borek Air used a DHC 6 Twin Otter aircraft to rescue Dr. Ronald Shemenski from the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station. This was the first ever rescue from the South Pole during the southern winter. To achieve the range necessary for this flight, the Twin Otter was equipped with a special ferry tank. In 2009, the company was commissioned to recover a crashed aircraft in the Antarctic, and employees spent 25 days in a makeshift camp to complete the project. The crew, captain Wally Dobchuk, first officer Sebastian Trudel and maintenance engineer Michael McCrae were honoured for their heroism by Aviation Week. In 2020 one of the airline's converted DC 3s was used by NASA to drop probes along Greenland's Atlantic coast, as part of the NASA's annual Oceans Melting Greenland project. The project is intended to monitor the rate at which Greenland's ice cap melts into the sea.