Manitoba's Top Employers (2026) Magazine - Magazine - Page 18
MANITOBA’S TOP EMPLOYERS (2026)
18
Calm Air carries with it the chance for adventure
B
y the time Kris Young
Tenn joined Calm Air
International LP in
1995, she was already
well travelled. She’d
been a flight attendant for five
years in her native Jamaica. But
Calm Air, a Winnipeg-based
regional airline serving northern
Manitoba and Nunavut, “was very
different than what I was used
to flying before,” she says. The
camaraderie was extraordinary.
“Everybody knew everybody.
It was just a really close,
relationship-based company.”
The founder and owner at the
time, Arnold Morberg, would greet
and kiss the hands of the flight
attendants every time he boarded
a plane. He also made sure the
carrier was deeply embedded in
the remote communities for which
Calm Air serves as a lifeline to the
outside world.
It’s a pretty huge
moment when we
have a team member
who started in
our reservations
department and one
day is one of our pilots
operating one of our
scheduled flights.
— Bridget Anderson
Director of Customer Service
It was a revelation for Young
Tenn to go to places far off the
beaten path and to experience the
meaning of community there. One
A customer service agent at Calm Air International.
Christmas, she volunteered to help
serve a company-sponsored feast
in Sanikiluaq, an island village in
Hudson Bay.
“It was very humbling but at the
same time enjoyable. What was
most enjoyable was that they all
recognized me from being on my
flights, including the kids. It was
so nice to see everybody and visit
with them in a less professional
environment,” she says.
Having that face-to-face
connection with northern
communities is a unique bonus
of working with Calm Air, agrees
Bridget Anderson, the airline’s
director of customer service.
She’s attended everything from
Calm Air-sponsored sports
tournaments to demonstrations of
igloo building. “The communitymindedness is sometimes very
different than at some of our
southern locations,” she says.
The chance for adventure
working with Calm Air comes
along with a competitive suite of
benefits, including pension plan,
employee share ownership plan
(with parent company Exchange
Income Corp.), parental leave
top-up pay, $1,000 per year in
mental health practitioner funding
and an employee family assistance
program.
As with most airlines, flight
benefits are a popular perk; Calm
Air offers free and discounted
standby and confirmed flights for
employees and their families —
not only on its own routes but also
with around 50 aviation partners
across Canada and worldwide.
The benefits extend to freight
shipments too. Some employees
use it to send fresh groceries to
their families up north.
With over 600 employees and
a wide variety of teams from
reservations and customer service
to mechanical and in-flight crews,
Calm Air can offer completely
new opportunities to long-time
employees and backs it up with
job shadowing experiences and
paid training. The company even
has a Pilot Pathway program for
aspiring aviators: “It’s a pretty
huge moment when we have a
