Gem Air: Outback Operator Continued from page 17 another carrier doing the route in the interim could not. “That GPS route has lower minimums than the other IFR approaches, and so the completion rates using the GPS approach are better, which is obviously attractive to UPS,” Jo said. In 2019, Gem Air flew close to 2,300 hours for UPS. Jo reported that right now, their two largest year-round contracts with UPS are out of SLC to various locations in Idaho. Those trips are covered by two Caravans, based by Gem Air at SLC. A smaller year-round route out of Boise, ID uses a Piper Seneca. Gem Air also provides addi- tional aircraft to UPS for its peak shipping season—mid- November to mid-January—which include Caravans and Piper Chieftains. “Our extra peak season flights frequently include Ely (ELY), Nevada and Sun Valley (SUN), Idaho, on a weekday basis,” she explained. “We usually also have a standby aircraft that goes to a variety of other places for UPS, such as Jackson Hole (JAC), Wyoming, and Winnemucca (WMC), Nevada.” For the entire UPS oper- ation, average stage lengths are from one to two hours. Of the four pilots dedicated to the UPS contract, three are based at SLC and fly an average of four days per week, while the remaining pilot flies 4.5 days, each week, out of Boise. The pilots fly an average of 12 days every four weeks, and the company tries to schedule them evenly on short and long duty days. “We want to offer not only a livable salary, but also a livable schedule,” Jo said. “That’s a big part of our thought process as we grow and create more jobs.” In the peak shipping season, Gem Air will deploy some of its Salmon-based summer flying pilots to SLC, flying the Piper Chieftains. UPS also calls Gem Air into play at other heavy shipping periods, such as Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day. During these periods, pilots may fly additional days. Gem Air’s experience in freight—maybe not sur- prisingly—can be traced back to seasonal flying in the wilderness. Before flying cargo loads for UPS, Gem Air flew freight into backcountry lodges in the Frank Church Wilderness, which are frequently located near airstrips. “We’ve flown literally tons of material in for build- ing projects in the backcountry, from bridge beams, to plywood for new cabins, to a lumber sawmill,” Jo pointed Aviation Business Journal | Spring 2020 “As gritty as it might be at times, Jo maintains that the backcountry flying has attracted what she called ‘a different type of pilot,’ especially those who are not seeking an airline career.” out. “We have also flown food loads in, as there isn’t any other way to realistically get fresh supplies back there. You could also call a piece of our summer tourism busi- ness cargo when we fly loads of boating gear in for river runners. Rafts, frames, oars, kitchen boxes, coolers, tents, and everything else to run a river trip gets flown in when the water gets low.” The backcountry work horses are the two Britten Norman Islanders, which do a large portion of the work flying both people and gear into the Frank Church Wilderness and Selway Bitterroot Wilderness. “They’ve got those big, high wings, and they fly pretty slowly, which are all great attributes for a backcountry aircraft,” Jo said. “And, they can hold up to nine passengers, depending on weight, and/or a good number of bags. At the same time, the Islanders feature a straight-forward and quick change to a cargo configuration. We make good use of that feature, because we fly a lot of boating and hunting gear into the wilderness with the Islanders. On rare occasions, we’ve also sent them down to SLC with our Salmon pilots to back up our UPS routes in VFR conditions.” Jo concedes that backcountry operations can be gritty and a lot of hard work—loading heavy gear, flying it into a strip in the mountains, unloading it on a dirt runway, and taking off for home again. “I go in on backcountry cargo loads occasionally, to help unload, and there’s something very satisfying about the whole experience.” As gritty as it might be at times, Jo maintains that the backcountry flying has attracted what she called “a dif- ferent type of pilot,” especially those who are not seeking an airline career: “The hands-on airmanship and good Continued on page 21 19
