Never take anything at face value.

• Author: Ross, Ian
• Position: News - Learn from Leaders - Brief Article

Today's airline industry can be as volatile as a storm front, and expansion should not be made without a judicious eye.

Harvey Friesen, president of Bearskin Airlines, is well-versed at operating within the margins of safety, servicing remote communities and northern markets vacated by larger carriers. Expansion should be done cautiously and not without exhaustive study, says Friesen. Question everything. Don't take anything at face value.

"Before you go into any acquisitions or ventures, do your due diligence two or three times over to make sure you've got all the right information and it will evolve the way it's expected."

"We did enter into various offshoots of other businesses, where the picture was painted rosy and the information all looked very positive.

"We had a lot of trust and did not feel we were being misled. Once we got into the operation we had a rude awakening and it ended up being a lot of work to get things back on track and a much bigger...