Yukon’s airline might be one step closer to feeding more mouths delightfully warm cookies.

In July, Air North president Joe Sparling told media that a lack of federal government workers was preventing the airline’s Whitehorse-Ottawa route from making more money.

When the route was originally launched in February 2014, Sparling expected it to be full of federal government employees.

The route is cheaper and more convenient than other airlines’, Sparling said.

But when the load numbers on the route weren’t meeting expectations, Sparling suggested there might be something preventing the government workers from choosing Air North.

It had been suggested to the airline president on numerous occasions that the Air North routes were not showing up on the online booking tool the government employees are required to use.

The Yukon government, Sparling recently told the Star, does a better job at buying local flights than the federal government does.

But the way the travel booking system works differs from territorial to federal.

The Yukon has what is called the “travel booking desk,” made up of three full-time employees. A Yukon government employee who is bound for travel will send a request to a department head, who approves it and sends it to a travel agency to finalize.

The travel booking desk employees distribute the travel request amongst the local travel agencies on a rotational basis. It is the travel agencies who actually book the tickets.

Because of this, Sparling’s observation about the territorial government would make sense.

On the federal level, it operates quite differently. For federal employees, travel, booking, payment and expense management is contracted out.

When federal government employees book their travel, they can use an online booking tool or a travel call centre, both of which are operated by whichever company holds the contract.

For companies which have held this contract such as Concur, American Express Canada and Bell Canada, it is the largest travel management account in the country. “When American Express had the contract, Air North was not in the system,” said Denis O’Brien, manager of Whitehorse’s Marlin Travel.

In other words, if a federal government employee used the online booking tool, Air North routes would not be displayed.

“It will tell them that our flights are not available,” said Sparling.

“I’m sure that we are missing out on a lot of travel, (though) my only evidence is anecdotal.”

In 2013, the seven-year travel management contract was awarded to British agency Hogg-Robinson Group (HRG).

When asked whether all Canadian airlines are available on HRG’s online booking tool, Public Works and Government Services Canada indicated that only 15 out of the 24 are included online. “Airlines who choose not to load their content on the reservation system will have their flights available to government employees through the call centre,” a Public Works spokesperson told the Star.

Simply stated, Air North flights can only be accessed through the call centre.

While “choosing” to load content onto the online tool clearly sounds like an easy choice for airlines, it means getting down to brass tacks.

HRG uses a computer reservation system called Apollo, said Air North’s director of commercial development, Allan Moore.

For Air North to “load their content” onto HRG’s reservation system, the airline would have to be using Apollo.

To do so, said Moore, is cost-prohibitive for the small airline.

But, there’s a bright light in sight.

“I am currently working with HRG and developed a very good working relationship with them,” said Moore.

Although the companies have been in talks for about a year, Moore said in the past couple of weeks, ground has been broken on finding a way to appear in HRG’s online system.

“We hope in the very near future that we will be in the government system.”

In 2011, Statistics Canada reported having 427,000 federal government employees, with just 629 from the Yukon.

Though the airline is on sturdier ground now, it lost about $2.2 million back in 2013.

Increased charter and ground handling activities helped boost Air North’s projected operating profit of $1.5 million for 2015.

If all goes well, the little airline that could may see the spike in sales to federal government employees that it’s been dreaming of.