The Yukon’s flagship airline is joining aid efforts in Fort McMurray as wildfires rage on around northern Alberta’s oilsands.

Air North is offering discounts on flights and cargo to people impacted by the fires.

If there is space on flights, the airline will fill it with donated goods at no extra cost.

Air North has planes under contract to oil companies, and those companies have upped the number of flights in and out of Alberta’s oilpatch.

“It’s not a very big gesture; it’s the same gesture that people all across the country are doing,”Air North president Joe Sparling told the Star this morning.

“There are a number of Yukoners that are working in Fort McMurray, and we’ve made it easier for them to get home if they want, and we’ve made it easier for them to ship goods down there to support their family and friends.”

Air North is offering people impacted by the crisis up to 40 per cent off airfare and cargo.

The Yukon company’s planes fly into the oilpatch about 10 times a week, said Sparling.

Already, Air North has flown hundreds of people out on its regularly scheduled flights.

But, as wildfires escalated this week and oil companies began evacuating non-essential employees, more Air North flights were added to oilsands routes.

The flight schedule is being adjusted on a day-to-day basis to accommodate the fluid situation in Alberta, said Sparling.

“The gesture was simply an effort to accommodate those people who use our services regularly.”

On its regularly scheduled route network, Air North flies between Whitehorse, and Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver, as well as Yellowknife and Ottawa.

Alberta Premier Rachel Notley said Thursday the oil industry and the province together had airlifted about 8,000 people out of the Fort McMurray area to Edmonton and Calgary.

On Wednesday, the Yukon government announced it was donating $25,000 to Canadian Red Cross for Fort McMurray relief efforts.