Barry Lapointe, President
Barry Lapointe was born and raised in Vancouver, British Columbia, and graduated with honours from BCIT’s Aircraft Mechanic Engineer course in 1966 as class president. Upon completing his commercial pilot’s license in 1967, Barry gained invaluable experiences by working his way through various small air-charter companies. In 1968, he was rewarded for his hard work by becoming the Chief Engineer at Air West Airlines, which would later become Air BC.
Barry displayed his entrepreneurial spirit and began the dream to own and operate his own company. Barry moved to the Okanagan Valley in 1969 and founded Kelowna Flightcraft in 1970. He identified that there was a niche market opportunity in the Okanagan for an aircraft maintenance company. The company initially performed inspection checks, maintenance and other various tasks on assorted small aircraft throughout the Okanagan from the back of a truck. Over the years this expanded to courier and charter services. KFL is now the third largest Airline Company in Canada, and offers its clients a true, one-stop shop. KFL can now fly, maintain, modify, engineer and paint aircraft, as well as train both crew and mechanics. This includes mechanical, avionics and engines.
Barry has had a life-long interest in aviation and currently holds a Ministry of Transportation (MOT) Airline Transport Rated pilots license with over 14000 hours of flying. He also currently holds a MOT Aircraft Maintenance Engineers licensee in M1 and M2 categories and is highly respected for his skills as a pilot, maintenance engineer and entrepreneur. In 1977 they started one of the first dedicated courier air services across Canada and now Kelowna Flightcraft owns the largest fleet of aircraft operating in the Canadian Air Freight market.
Barry has a keen interest in Canadian Air Transportation and is a strong supporter of many groups. He is a past Chairman of the Airline Transport Association of Canada (ATAC) board and and is now serving as Secretary. Barry was also a member of the Partnership BC (PBC) and is a current Director with Purolator Courier Ltd. (PCL).
