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Authors: Michael Vlessides
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Yellowknife and the Eldorado Mine at Port Radium on the eastern shore of Great Bear Lake, some 450 kilometres (280 miles) to the north.
THE FAMILY BUSINESS
Upon further reflection, “wacky” may be a strong word to describe Buffalo Airways. Sure, day-to-day life there can be, er, unique, but the foundation upon which Buffalo operates is as simple and straightforward as it comes.
Indeed, from the “rampies” struggling on the frozen tarmac of the Yellowknife and Hay River airports—hoping one day to defy the odds, crack the upper echelon of the Buffalo hierarchy, and actually get behind the controls of a piece of flying history—to the people slogging away in the company’s cargo headquarters just down the street from the hangar, life at Buffalo Airways is work, work, work.
And it doesn’t matter if you’re related to the boss. If anything, Mikey, his sister Kathy (who manages the Hay River operation), and brother Rod (the company’s director of maintenance) are held to an even higher standard. Rod’s perspective on work/life balance changed with the birth of his first child—daughter Emma Rae was born on May 8, 2010—but Mikey is unrepentantly single. And right now the most important relationship in his life is with his job. In fact, when I met him for the first time, Mikey told me that he hadn’t had a day off while in Yellowknife for over a year. If he’s in town, he’s working. If he needs a day off, he has to go away. “I don’t work at Buffalo Airways,” Mikey said, “I live at Buffalo Airways.”
Although there is no such thing as a typical day in the life of Mikey McBryan—managing a small airline in one of the harshest climates on Earth will keep you on your toes—he is usually at work by 7:30 every morning (often earlier) to get ready for the arrival of the sked (airline lingo for a plane that’s part of a scheduled service) from Hay River. From then on it’s a whirlwind of activity that includes anything you could imagine: quoting jobs to prospective clients, flying to distant countries to buy long-forgotten and disused planes that could be coaxed back to life at the hands of Buffalo mechanics, managing the company’s ever-growing public image (a task he’s particularly fond of), or designing another round of T-shirts to sell at his now wildly successful Buffalo Airwear Internet store. Like his dad, Mikey finds little time to rest.
It’s hard to imagine Mikey dedicating himself as much to his work as his father does, but there’s certainly enough on his plate to keep him consumed 24/7. Buffalo employs seventy to eighty full-time employees, whom Mikey calls the “hard-core employees.” Then there’s another twenty-odd people who work for the company on a contract-by-contract basis, usually pilots who come in for a week or two at a time, or who specialize in certain aircraft.
It’s not as though Buffalo has a lock on northern cargo transport, either. Sure, the company is one of the biggest players in the northern game, but Mikey knows that First Air, a passenger and charter airline based in Ottawa, is always breathing down his neck with its two Yellowknife-based Lockheed C-130 Hercules aircraft. “And the only way we know how much they compete with us is because we get so much busier when they have a plane down,” Mikey told me. “That’s how you know your competition.”
If Mikey is the least bit leery of his rivals stealing some of his business, he certainly doesn’t show it. “We all technically do the same thing: we go into communities with no roads. I guess the difference is these other companies are basically passenger airlines, while we’re primarily a cargo company.”
Yet as so many people—both in the Canadian North and around the world—have come to know, Buffalo is much more than just an air cargo company. The simple fact that there are very few airlines on Earth that can claim a unique fleet such as this is testimony enough to the company’s place in the
THE FAMILY BUSINESS
Upon further reflection, “wacky” may be a strong word to describe Buffalo Airways. Sure, day-to-day life there can be, er, unique, but the foundation upon which Buffalo operates is as simple and straightforward as it comes.
Indeed, from the “rampies” struggling on the frozen tarmac of the Yellowknife and Hay River airports—hoping one day to defy the odds, crack the upper echelon of the Buffalo hierarchy, and actually get behind the controls of a piece of flying history—to the people slogging away in the company’s cargo headquarters just down the street from the hangar, life at Buffalo Airways is work, work, work.
And it doesn’t matter if you’re related to the boss. If anything, Mikey, his sister Kathy (who manages the Hay River operation), and brother Rod (the company’s director of maintenance) are held to an even higher standard. Rod’s perspective on work/life balance changed with the birth of his first child—daughter Emma Rae was born on May 8, 2010—but Mikey is unrepentantly single. And right now the most important relationship in his life is with his job. In fact, when I met him for the first time, Mikey told me that he hadn’t had a day off while in Yellowknife for over a year. If he’s in town, he’s working. If he needs a day off, he has to go away. “I don’t work at Buffalo Airways,” Mikey said, “I live at Buffalo Airways.”
Although there is no such thing as a typical day in the life of Mikey McBryan—managing a small airline in one of the harshest climates on Earth will keep you on your toes—he is usually at work by 7:30 every morning (often earlier) to get ready for the arrival of the sked (airline lingo for a plane that’s part of a scheduled service) from Hay River. From then on it’s a whirlwind of activity that includes anything you could imagine: quoting jobs to prospective clients, flying to distant countries to buy long-forgotten and disused planes that could be coaxed back to life at the hands of Buffalo mechanics, managing the company’s ever-growing public image (a task he’s particularly fond of), or designing another round of T-shirts to sell at his now wildly successful Buffalo Airwear Internet store. Like his dad, Mikey finds little time to rest.
It’s hard to imagine Mikey dedicating himself as much to his work as his father does, but there’s certainly enough on his plate to keep him consumed 24/7. Buffalo employs seventy to eighty full-time employees, whom Mikey calls the “hard-core employees.” Then there’s another twenty-odd people who work for the company on a contract-by-contract basis, usually pilots who come in for a week or two at a time, or who specialize in certain aircraft.
It’s not as though Buffalo has a lock on northern cargo transport, either. Sure, the company is one of the biggest players in the northern game, but Mikey knows that First Air, a passenger and charter airline based in Ottawa, is always breathing down his neck with its two Yellowknife-based Lockheed C-130 Hercules aircraft. “And the only way we know how much they compete with us is because we get so much busier when they have a plane down,” Mikey told me. “That’s how you know your competition.”
If Mikey is the least bit leery of his rivals stealing some of his business, he certainly doesn’t show it. “We all technically do the same thing: we go into communities with no roads. I guess the difference is these other companies are basically passenger airlines, while we’re primarily a cargo company.”
Yet as so many people—both in the Canadian North and around the world—have come to know, Buffalo is much more than just an air cargo company. The simple fact that there are very few airlines on Earth that can claim a unique fleet such as this is testimony enough to the company’s place in the
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