Pivot Airlines (ZX, Toronto Pearson) has announced the availability of its only DHC-8-100 for ad-hoc, committed term, and ACMI work from its main base at Toronto Pearson.

"Although the aircraft has only been on our AOC for about one week, it has already been heavily booked to service our local market," the airline announced on social media. The 37-seater, 30.9-year-old De Havilland Aircraft of Canada turboprop is C-FDNG (msn 166), equipped with Pratt & Whitney PW120A engines and is stored at Toronto Pearson. It is owned and was previously operated by Central Mountain Air (9M, Smithers), according to the ch-aviation fleets module.

Pivot Airlines took delivery of the Dash-8-100 in late 2022, alongside a maiden CRJ200, the former Air Wisconsin N418AW (msn 7618), later registered in February 2023 as C-FWRL. However, it never entered service with Pivot Airlines and was returned to Air Wisconsin less than a month later.

Chief Executive Officer Eric Edmondson told ch-aviation the airline had another CRJ200 scheduled to join its fleet in the coming months, but could not reveal details as it was still negotiating final terms with the lessor. "The next CRJ200 replaces [msn] 7618 that we swapped with the lessor for their next aircraft," he explained.

Edmondson said that Pivot Airlines would continue to focus on the ad-hoc, dedicated, and contract charter market with a keen focus on ACMI opportunities. "Pivot Airlines will continue to build our fleet cautiously based on today's market opportunities while positioning ourselves for mid-term scale opportunities as the Canadian scheduled service market reaches an equilibrium. To accomplish this, we will focus on the CRJ and Dash 8 platforms while [being] agnostic to the variant (CRJ 200/700/850/900, Dash 100/300/400)," he explained.

"At our core, we maintain a regional airline infrastructure and capabilities and will be opportunistic when considering partnership opportunities as major airlines look to re-establish regional connectivity or, in time, working directly with communities left without service."

"Pivot Airlines recognises that one of the critical challenges facing the sector today is the supply of experienced, qualified, quality professionals. We are working hard to develop streaming opportunities for partner airlines, and we are excited to continue building that aspect of our business as we see it as critical to any future airline partnership. Today, we remain humble in our initial pursuits due to our very modest scale. The bones of a leading Canadian programme are there; we simply need to rebuild the body," Edmondson said.

Launched at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in June 2020, Pivot Airlines also operates one CRJ100 and planned to add three more of the type by February 2023. These plans stalled as the airline's existing CRJ100 and crew were detained for months in the Dominican Republic after they discovered bags of cocaine in the aircraft's avionics compartment. The crew was released in late 2022, and the aircraft returned to Canada on January 30, 2023.