The response was fast and furious.

As the clock struck midnight on Wednesday, Air North, Yukon’s Airline kicked off its big 4-0 birthday bash with what was intended to be a one-day sale.

It ended up clogging up its phone lines and computer systems throughout the day, with customers anxious to take advantage of 40 per cent off all flights between Feb. 15 and Aug. 31.

The sale came about thanks to the the airline’s business development team, which worked hard to come up with something special to celebrate 40 years of operations.

Air North was somewhat a victim of its own success as it soon became evident Wednesday that 24 hours were not enough for all those trying to get sale tickets to get through to the airline.

Customers took to social media congratulating the airline on its anniversary, highlighting their choice of airline and questioning how they might get through before the day and sale was over.

As one post noted: “Happy 40th Anniversary Air North my favorite airline!!! Youre one and only !!! We love you seat sales !!! BUT I’ve been trying to call all morning and both lines are down. When do you think I should call back I wanna book tickets!!!”

By Wednesday afternoon, as staff dealt with booking after booking, the airline announced the sale would be extended another day given the unprecedented demand.

This morning, it appeared the sale was continuing to impact Air North’s phone system, with calls in continuing to report all circuits as busy.

Customers took to social media once again today to comment on the sale.

One posting noted: “The website is working much better today! thanks for extending the sale. just booked a trip to yellowknife that wasn’t planned so i guess the sales work!”

In an email correspondence to the Star, Air North president Joe Sparling noted the response to the sale is unlike anything the airline has seen when its offered sales in the past.

“We expected a big uptake on our 40th anniversary sale, but nowhere near what we actually experienced yesterday,” he said.

The airline sold half as many seats in one day through the sale as it had throughout all of 2002, when it added its Vancouver and Edmonton/Calgary routes.

“The increased activity completely bogged down our telephone system, our reservations system and our check-in system,” Sparling said of yesterday’s activity.

Today’s booking and reservation systems, regular routes that travel to Yellowknife/Ottawa, Edmonton/Calgary and Kelowna/Vancouver along with its routes to Old Crow, Dawson and Inuvik and special charters that take Yukoners to Las Vegas or to compete in the Victoria Marathon each year are a long way from the small charter and training service that Sparling and Tom Wood opened in 1977.

They did so with five small planes (two that were owned, three that were leased) and two other staff.

“At that time, we did not see the operation getting much bigger than that,” Sparling noted.

As it’s highlighted on the Air North website: “Joe and Tom’s original intent is right there in the name – we were to offer charter flights to the mining industry and flight training services – but it didn’t take long for us to grow beyond that original vision.”

In the early 1980s, the fleet grew to include a variety of aircraft, and eventually, the airline bought its DC-3 and DC-4 aircraft and started offering scheduled flights within the Yukon and into Alaska.

“Just over 10 years later, two important changes began: we retired the Douglas aircraft in favour of Hawker Siddeley 748 turboprops, and the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation of Old Crow expressed an interest in investing in Air North,” it’s stated on the website.

“The investment from the Vuntut Gwitchin made it possible a few years later, in 2002, for us to enter a whole new era: we purchased two Boeing 737 jets.”

That meant the start of its Vancouver and Edmonton/Calgary routes, and with it came its new brand with the company now known as Air North, Yukon’s Airline.

As the company has grown, Kelowna, B.C. was added to its Vancouver routes with additional flights offered there and the Yellowknife/Ottawa route out of Whitehorse was added as well.