CorilAir serves Campbell River and the Discovery Islands

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents -Cortes Island Air was based in Gorge Harbour in the 1990s. That was before Richard Godfrey sold the company to Mike Farrel in 2000. Farrel relocated to Campbell River, but preserved the company’s origins in its new name. CorilAIr is short for Cortes Island Airlines.

While the airline now flys out of Campbell River, it still serves Cortes.

Operations Manager Shannon Quinn explained, “Cortes Bay is our primary location for pickup and drop offs, maybe three times in one day. Gorge Harbour would be the second, we do a little bit with Mansons Landing, but not as much with Squirrel Cove as we have in the past.”

Later that morning, Farrel confirmed that the two or three flights coming into Squirrel Cove every year are probably CorilAir.

He added that most of the planes seen flying around Cortes are probably theirs.

“There's a lot of different companies in the summer months that come and go. In the winter time, it's probably us. Of course, if they're doing something you don't like, or making a lot of noise, it's not us,” he quipped.

The Klahoose Wilderness Resort was added to the list of destinations last summer, with customers flying in from Campbell River, Vancouver and Cortes Island.

CorilAIr is now based on the Spit in Campbell River.

They have four airplanes: two cessnas that carry up to three passengers and two Beavers that can carry six.

CorilAir carries the mail to Refuge Cove on West Redonda Island, Surge Narrows on Read Island and Big Bay on Stuart Island on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Those last two days they also service Blind Channel on West Thurlow Island.

From mid May until late September or early October, they have scheduled local flights out of Campbell River. (9:30 AM, 12:30 PM and 5:00 PM).

“We drop people off on the Discovery Islands, Desolation Sound and pick up anybody that needs to be picked up and return back to Campbell River,” said Quinn. “During July and August, we offer a Vancouver scheduled service out of Campbell River, which services the Islands and Desolation Sound, to take people back and forth to Vancouver.”

They set out from Campbell River at noon, pick up any passengers in the Discovery Islands and then proceed south to Vancouver airport in Richmond. The return flight leaves Vancouver at 4:00 PM and, after dropping off any island passengers, ends up at Campbell River.

Though CorilAir services most of the Discovery Islands, fights to Quadra are less frequent. Most of the traffic uses the ferry. However they do pick up and drop people off on the Vancouver run, often at April Point, and they sometimes do boat to plane transfers at Heriot Bay.

In addition to scheduled flights, people sometimes charter out an aircraft. This can be more economically viable for groups. In the podcast, Quinn mentions of Cortes family of four who saved a couple of hundred dollars by chartering an aircraft on the return trip from the Sonora Resort.

(There is a lot more detail about pricing and destinations in the podcast.)