The Globe and Mail will stop delivering its print edition in Newfoundland and Labrador and some communities in B.C. due to the "significant cost" of flying the newspapers to their destination. 

Publisher and CEO Phillip Crawley told J-Source it costs $1.5 million annually to fly and truck the newspapers from its Vancouver-based printing plant to northern B.C. and from its Halifax plant to Newfoundland and Labrador.

Some 3,000 subscribers in Newfoundland and Labrador, as well as Prince George, Prince Rupert, Whistler, Revelstoke and Sun Peaks, will be affected. Instead, the Globe will offer those print subscribers 50 per cent off Globe Unlimited online access. Subscribers can also get the same discounted price for Globe2Go, a PDF version of the print edition.

"It doesn't make any business sense at all when we can offer those subscribers these alternatives," Crawley said. "It wasn't a decision we took lightly… In addition to the transportation costs, sometimes the newspaper didn't get delivered or was late because the weather made it challenging to fly."

Delivery of the print product in those areas will cease on Oct. 1.

Tamara Baluja is an associate editor at J-Source.ca, where this article first appeared.