Nolinor Aviation is launching a fleet management service for organisations that own an aircraft or are considering acquiring one. The Canadian specialised charter provider will take responsibility for operating these aircraft, eliminating the need for clients to obtain their own air operator certificate. Oliver Tomczak, appointed vice president, fleet strategy, will lead this new business unit. He joined Nolinor in 2014 as a flight dispatcher and rose through flight operations QA manager and assistant director of flight operations before being named director of operations.

Under this service, crews, maintenance, flight dispatch, safety management and parts procurement will fall under Nolinor's air operator certificate, issued by Transport Canada under Subpart 705. Clients will retain ownership of their aircraft, engines and technical assets, as well as control over their schedules, service standards and onboard branding.

“Owning an aircraft should not mean running an airline,” explains Tomczak. “Our clients bring their aircraft and their mission, and we take care of the rest. They have no certificate to obtain, no hangar to build and no team to hire. They deal with a single point of contact and have full visibility into costs.”

The service draws on the infrastructure the company already uses for its operations in northern Canada. Nolinor operates three maintenance lines across two provinces, along with a certified Type A flight dispatch centre with redundancy in both provinces. The carrier also has a certified safety management system, a spare parts inventory and its own flight simulator for pilot training. Nolinor is the only carrier approved by Transport Canada to perform maintenance on its entire Boeing 737 fleet.

Clients will have access to the rest of Nolinor's fleet whenever their aircraft undergoes heavy maintenance or is out of service.

“Over more than 30 years, we have built an ecosystem that very few carriers can match,” emphasises Marco Prud'Homme, president and chief executive officer of Nolinor Aviation. “Fleet management makes this expertise available to organisations that need their own aircraft without having to build an airline. Oliver's experience makes him the right person to lead this new chapter. He will also help businesses select the aircraft best suited to their needs.”

Each engagement will begin with a no-obligation assessment, during which Nolinor will model the client's mission or analyse its existing operations. A planning phase conducted jointly with the client will follow, before aircraft operations begin under performance metrics agreed upon by both parties.

Founded in 1992, Nolinor Aviation provides charter flights, cargo, ACMI, fly-in/fly-out and crisis management services across Canada, the Americas and Europe. The company operates one of the largest fleets of charter Boeing 737 aircraft in North America, including the world's largest fleet of Boeing 737-200s, and specialises in northern operations on gravel, ice and paved runways.