PAL Airlines

If you travel in Eastern Canada, you can hardly avoid one aircraft type: the Dash 8. And one airline has committed entirely to this turboprop – PAL Airlines of St. John’s, Newfoundland. It connects the island with Labrador, Québec and the Maritimes, flies to places reachable only by air or ship, and since 2023 also operates Q400s for Air Canada Express. Here you will learn where the airline comes from, what is in its fleet and how to recognize it on the apron.

PAL Airlines at a glance

PAL Airlines is a Canadian regional airline headquartered at St. John’s International Airport, in the capital of the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. It flies scheduled service, charter, cargo and medical transport. The airline describes itself as one of the largest independent airlines in Eastern Canada and Québec.

The network is concentrated in the east of the country. In Newfoundland and Labrador it includes places like Deer Lake, Gander, St. Anthony, Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Wabush and Churchill Falls; the small coastal communities of Labrador are served by its sister company Air Borealis. In Québec PAL flies to Blanc-Sablon, Sept-Îles, Gaspé, Mont-Joli, the Îles-de-la-Madeleine, Québec City and Montréal, among others; in New Brunswick, Moncton is on the schedule. Because routes change seasonally and with new contracts, the usual rule applies: check the current schedule before you head out.

Behind the airline stands the PAL Group of Companies, headquartered in St. John’s. Besides the airline it includes PAL Aerospace, Air Borealis, an avionics business and a training business. Since 2014/2015 the group has been part of the Canadian Exchange Income Corporation, a publicly listed holding company that owns several aviation businesses.

Codes and callsign

• IATA code PB: appears in the flight number, on the departure board and on the ticket.
• ICAO code PVL: appears in the air traffic control flight plan and on many flight trackers.
• Callsign PROVINCIAL: how the crew identifies itself on the radio – the old name lives on here.

Note on flights for Air Canada Express: these operate under Air Canada flight numbers. On the tracker you will then not automatically see “PAL”, but have to find out via registration or operator listing who is flying the aircraft. How to read Canadian C- registrations in general is explained in the guide Understanding aircraft registrations.

Another confusion trap: Philippine Airlines is also often abbreviated “PAL”. The two companies have nothing to do with each other – on Commons and in photo databases they still like to end up in the same search results.

From flight school to Dash 8 airline

PAL’s roots lie in the 1970s. Exchange Income Corporation gives 1972 as the founding year of the group, while other accounts put the start of the flight school and charter operation at 1974. Scheduled service was added in 1980. After that the company grew in several steps:

Types like the Britten-Norman Islander, Piper Navajo, Convair 580 and Saab 340 date from earlier years. In passenger service the airline is now entirely focused on one family – which simplifies maintenance, training and spare parts in a region where every outage means long distances.

The fleet: only Dash 8

In passenger service PAL Airlines flies exclusively the Dash 8 – originally developed by De Havilland Canada, built for a time under Bombardier, powered by turboprops from Pratt & Whitney Canada. The seat counts come from the airline’s figures:

Type	Seats	Use	Spotter tip
Dash 8-100	37 (also 29 or 21)	Short routes, also with reduced seating	Short fuselage, four-blade propellers – a real classic
Dash 8-300	50 (also 47 or 40)	Regional routes and charter	Stretched version of the original Dash 8
Dash 8-400 (Q400)	76	Main routes and Air Canada Express	Long fuselage, six-blade propellers

The Dash 8-100 is the original version from the 1980s. The Dash 8-300 is the stretched variant of the same generation. Both types have become rare in scheduled service worldwide, which makes PAL interesting for collectors.

The backbone is the Dash 8-400 (Q400). It is much longer, faster and offers 76 seats. According to common fleet overviews, the Q400 makes up by far the largest part of PAL’s roughly 20 aircraft; some of them fly for Air Canada Express. Because more Q400s were agreed for this contract in January 2026, the exact numbers fluctuate – when completing your list, rely on current register data rather than a fixed list.

Air Canada Express: PAL in the maple leaf network

In May 2023 PAL signed a letter of intent to operate regional flights in Eastern Canada on behalf of Air Canada; flight operations under the Air Canada Express brand started later that same year. On October 1, 2024, PAL flew cross-border for Air Canada Express for the first time – from Halifax to Newark and Boston. In January 2026 both sides extended the capacity agreement to 2032; five more Q400s were added, and connections from Montréal-Trudeau in Québec and to New Brunswick were secured.

For spotters this means: PAL Q400s can suddenly show up in places outside PAL’s own network. If you see an Air Canada Express Dash 8 in Newark or Boston, look closely – it may be from PAL. You can find spots for this at Newark Liberty Airport or on Castle Island in South Boston. Whether the route is currently on the schedule is best checked shortly beforehand.

Jazz Aviation, also with Dash 8s and CRJs, still flies the largest part of Air Canada Express. For attribution, the registration therefore helps you more than the paint.

PAL Aerospace and Air Borealis

The airline is only one part of the group. There are two sister companies you should know, because their aircraft often stand on the same aprons:

• Air Borealis was formed in 2017 from Innu Mikun Airlines and Air Labrador. Its partners are the Innu Development Limited Partnership and the Nunatsiavut Group of Companies. With DHC-6 Twin Otters, Air Borealis serves communities on the Labrador coast such as Nain, Hopedale, Makkovik, Postville and Rigolet – often on gravel runways. Since 2020 there has also been a helicopter charter division.
• PAL Aerospace operates aircraft for maritime surveillance, reconnaissance and special missions, including for Canadian authorities and abroad. These include Dash 8s with sensor equipment as well as aircraft of the King Air family and the Beechcraft 1900D.

How to recognize PAL Airlines

The current livery is simple but easy to recognize: white fuselage, dark, almost black tail with a large orange-gold star. The “PALairlines” titles are on the fuselage. Some aircraft wear a variant with a white tail in which only the leading edge is set off in dark – the star remains the sure identifier.

Aircraft that PAL flies for Air Canada Express, on the other hand, generally operate in Air Canada’s look. Here only the registration or the operator entry on the tracker tells you that PAL is behind it.

Telling the Dash 8 variants apart is the real spotter topic:

For all Dash 8s: the main landing gear retracts into the engine nacelles, not into a fairing on the fuselage as on the ATR. You will find a detailed guide in Telling the ATR and Dash 8 apart.

Spotting PAL: St. John’s, Halifax and Labrador

The obvious place is St. John’s International (YYT). The airport lies a few kilometers northwest of the city and has two runways: 10/28 at about 2,590 meters and 16/34 at about 2,135 meters. PAL has its home base here. Air Canada, WestJet, Porter and Air Saint-Pierre also operate here, along with helicopters for the offshore oil platforms. Among pilots, by the way, the field is still often called “Torbay”. Mind the time zone: Newfoundland is offset by half an hour from Atlantic Time.

You have further good chances in Halifax, where PAL has a base and many Air Canada Express flights depart, in Montréal-Trudeau, and in Goose Bay and Wabush in Labrador. If you travel to the Labrador coast, you are more likely to see Air Borealis with Twin Otters there.

Weather plays a big role in Newfoundland. Fog, low clouds and strong wind are not unusual, and crosswind landings are part of everyday life for Dash 8 crews. You will find tips for gray days under Plane spotting in bad weather, and background on gusty approaches in the article Crosswind landings. And so that the propellers don’t look frozen in the photo, the guide to the right shutter speed for propellers is worth a look.

Incidents

Like any airline with dense short-haul operations, PAL has had incidents that made headlines. In May 2024 a Q400 in St. John’s rolled past the end of Runway 10 in very poor visibility. On December 28, 2024, a Q400 (C-GPNA) on Air Canada Express Flight 2259 from St. John’s to Halifax lost wheels from the left main landing gear; this went unnoticed before landing, and the aircraft touched down on the strut in Halifax. All 77 people aboard were able to leave the aircraft safely; Halifax Airport was temporarily closed.

PAL in the Canadian market

In Eastern Canada PAL occupies a clear niche: the airline serves routes that are too small for large network airlines and connects them to the hubs. Miles run through Air Canada’s Aeroplan program. Through the Air Canada Express contract, PAL is now also a partner in the network of Star Alliance member Air Canada – PAL itself, however, is not an alliance member.

Compared with Porter Airlines, which grew big with the Q400 and now also flies jets, PAL has stayed with the Dash 8. And unlike Jazz, PAL flies its own network under its own name alongside the contract business.

Common mix-ups

• Confusing PAL Airlines with Philippine Airlines – same abbreviation, completely different airline.
• Attributing every Air Canada Express Q400 to Jazz – some are flown by PAL.
• Taking PAL Aerospace for the airline – the surveillance aircraft belong to the sister company.
• Attributing Twin Otters in Labrador to PAL – they fly for Air Borealis.
• Confusing the Dash 8-300 and the Q400 – count the propeller blades: four versus six.

Conclusion

PAL Airlines is Newfoundland’s Dash 8 airline: grown out of a flight school and charter operation, today a lifeline for remote communities and at the same time a partner of Air Canada. For spotters it is doubly appealing – with the old Dash 8-100s and -300s in scheduled service and with Q400s that travel under another airline’s flag as far as Boston and Newark.