YVR joins forces with trailblazing airline to assistance Indigenous enterprises and tourism – Transportation


Teara Fraser has grow to be accustomed to key lifetime events.

In 2001, the now 51-12 months-aged entrepreneur knowledgeable an epiphany when she flew for the initial time as a passenger in a little plane. “I needed to touch all the things in the airplane and I desired to know what every thing was,” she later on recalled. “I stated, ‘I really don’t care what it usually takes to be equipped to do this. I want to fly an airplane.’”  

Inside of a calendar year, she experienced attained a commercial pilot license. 

Throughout the many years that followed, Fraser, who is Métis, set up a foundation dedicated to management and security in the aviation business established an aerial surveying organization and founded a non-earnings that connects and uplifts Indigenous peoples, amongst lots of other achievements. 

Her checklist of achievements proved so amazing that she caught the awareness of DC Comics, which integrated her in the graphic novel Superb Ladies of the Planet alongside the likes of Serena Williams, Greta Thunberg and Beyoncé. 

Maybe most appreciably of all, in 2017 Fraser founded Iskwew Air, the first Canadian airline 100% owned and operated by an Indigenous female.

“The eyesight for what is now Iskwew [pronounced Iss-KWAY-yo] Air was born when the 4 Host Initially Nations and Vancouver/Whistler were being vying for the Olympics,” points out Fraser. “There was a commitment to bring travellers into Vancouver and encompassing locations, but to also showcase B.C.’s Initial Nations and Indigenous people all through the province. It was then that I assumed about going into all those smaller sized communities, with a smaller aircraft, and staying ready to connect travellers to Indigenous tourism ordeals, to each other and to the land.”

It would be an additional 10 years ahead of Iskwew Air launched in earnest – in the midst of the pandemic, no less – but the airline is now flourishing. In August 2021, Iskwew commenced scheduled provider in between Vancouver Intercontinental Airport (YVR) and Qualicum Beach Airport. “We had a gorgeous ceremony,” Fraser recalls. “We were being sent off by Musqueam Indian Band and welcomed by Qualicum First Country on our inaugural flight between the two communities. That was extremely distinctive.”

And now, Iskwew Air has signed an MOU (memorandum of knowledge) with YVR to progress Indigenous businesses and tourism in B.C. This MOU signals the starting of a new partnership – a single that acknowledges the ability of distinctive perspectives, accountability, and a shared vision to assist the progress of Indigenous firms and a sustainable Indigenous tourism economic system, thus supporting the economic restoration of B.C.

“Iskwew Air and YVR share an knowledge about the relevance of Indigenous tourism and how to uplift it,” states Fraser, noting that one of the earliest careers in her aviation vocation was working in operations at YVR. “One of my most significant messages I like to convey is that uplifting Indigenous corporations is the most pure, swift and powerful pathway to economic reconciliation in our region. 

“I’m constantly partaking individuals and organizations in this regard, due to the fact when Indigenous corporations are thriving, those assets are likely again into families and communities. YVR shares in that, and that’s why we’re strengthening our partnership in that curiosity.”

As effectively as aiming to broaden the frequency of flights to and from Qualicum Seashore, Fraser says Iskwew Air and YVR’s potential designs incorporate “a journey to a additional sustainable business ecosystem. I’m enthusiastic to function with YVR’s Innovation Hub on reducing emissions, inexperienced initiatives, and staying in the spirit of collaboration to see how we can walk far more softly on Mom Earth… We [Iskwew Air] see ourselves as a bridge involving classic air transportation and the sustainable technologies of the long term. I see us innovating, collaborating, obtaining techniques to build extra equitable and sustainable devices in aviation and aerospace.”

Alongside one another with Musqueam, YVR is performing to genuine reconciliation and a mutually beneficial potential 12 months-spherical, every one working day. This starts off with building alternatives to help sustainable Indigenous-owned organizations and interact in Indigenous protocols although encouraging associates and the business group to do the very same. This style of assist will allow the likes of Iskwew Air to not only endure, but thrive. 

“An airline commence-up in a worldwide pandemic is up coming-degree really hard,” states Fraser. “But we persevered, and that perseverance is mostly the result of a local community that arrives with each other, these as this partnership with YVR. It is the working collectively, the innovating collectively, the caring for a single a different.”

To find out additional about Iskwew Air and to e book a flight, visit iskwew.ca



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