Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I want to take this opportunity to thank the good people at Landa Aviation for taking it upon themselves to help reduce Hay River's cost of living by offering affordable scheduled flights between Hay River and Yellowknife six days a week.

Prior to May 2018, when Landa Aviation began offering scheduled passenger flights, the cost of a return plane ticket between Hay River and Yellowknife was $1,200. As I stated before in this House, depending on when you booked, you could fly from Yellowknife to Beijing for less than it cost for the 25-minute flight over the Great Slave Lake. That's why when Landa came on the scene offering return tickets at half the price there was a lot of excitement. Instead of $1,200, they charged $600. Landa also offered smaller books of tickets, so that businesses didn't have to shell out $5,000 a pop to get a deal on flights.

I travel back and forth from my home to the capital quite often, so I have had the pleasure of flying with Landa many times over the past nine months and I can attest that they always offered great service, have cheerful staff, and have the most comfortable seats in the business.

Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, Landa recently announced that it would be ending passenger service at the end of next week.

It is a great loss to our community, and it is going to be another financial hit to those who have to pay out-of-pocket to fly between Hay River and Yellowknife, because I have a feeling that the discounted tickets being offered by the competition aren't going to stick around past next week.

I don't think that the folks at Landa ever thought that scheduled flights were going to be a big money-maker. I honestly think they did it to help out our community because they are good corporate citizens, like many of the small businesses in Hay River. I wish that their contribution to Hay River had been recognized and supported by this government and that the GNWT had opted to fly Landa a little more often. Who knows what could have been if they did?

However, with that being said, Mr. Speaker, I want to once again thank everyone over at Landa for the great service they have provided, and I will be seeing them tomorrow. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.