Taking Flight

Remote Northern communities are reliant on various airlines to deliver supplies such as food and living essentials. Without these airlines, communities would not have access to many supplies that can often only be delivered by plane. 

Wasaya Airways LP is the leading quality provider of airline services in Northern Ontario. It has over 25 destinations and four bases across Northern Ontario. They were in search of a solution to improve their operational efficiencies and passenger bookings in order to cut down on costs. 

Through the Esch 20/20 Challenge, Voyager Systems proposed the best solution. Led by Lukasz Holownia and Mohsen Rostami, they will be developing a payload management and flight planning application in order to reduce the number of hours needed to perform these functions. This will help Wasaya Airways achieve their goal of reducing operating costs.

"[Voyager Systems' application] will allow Wasaya Airways to remain cost-efficient in order to follow-through on their social commitment to helping remote Northern communities."

This past summer, the Voyager Systems team had the opportunity to visit Wasaya Airways’ Headquarters in Sioux Lookout and Thunder Bay, Ontario. They were able to experience firsthand how the airline operates and take note of how it could function more efficiently. 

Voyager Systems’ application will greatly reduce the amount of non-value add tasks that come with human operators handling the majority of detail-oriented work. The application will be very user-friendly, which will make for a relatively seamless transition to virtual work. Basically, users will be entering the required flight planning information and letting the application calculate the necessary performance parameters to determine whether a given payload is acceptable.

This solution will allow Wasaya Airways to remain cost-efficient in order to follow-through on their social commitment to helping remote Northern communities.

Holownia says they are very grateful to the Esch committee, and look forward to growing their venture in the future.

"We are extremely grateful for the opportunity that the Esch 20/20 Challenge has given us,” Holownia says. “We are continuing to work hard to establish our startup, Voyager Systems, and we look forward to all future work with Wasaya Airways and industry partners through this endeavour."