Flair boosting fleet to grow service by 50% in time for summer 2023
Upstart commercial carrier Flair Airlines Ltd. is planning to expand its fleet to 27 aircraft in a bid to grow capacity by 50 per cent by next summer.
Flair said its expanded service would focus on key domestic routes and would make it the country's third-largest airline by seats flown and second-largest operator in some cities, including Montreal.
“We've talked a lot about our vision of getting Flair to 50 aircraft by 2025. We are well on track to that, so we're already 40 per cent of the way towards that vision,” chief executive Stephen Jones told reporters Wednesday.
The company said the seven new Boeing 737 aircraft will help increase frequencies across its network for the summer 2023 schedule and grow the number of seats it can sell by 35 per cent, with more new routes to be announced in the coming months.
The changes include 10 additional weekly flights on the Vancouver-toronto and Calgary-toronto routes, as well as eight more between Montreal and Toronto. Frequencies for Deer Lake (Newfoundland), Nashville and Mexico will also increase.
The carrier had announced in December 2021 that it was aiming to expand its fleet to 30 aircraft by mid-2023, but Jones said they now plan to reach that target by the end of 2023.
“Our bookings are very strong and so the business is really starting to gain momentum as Canada's first and only true independent ultralow cost carrier,” the CEO said.
The expansion announcement comes several months after the airline was cleared to continue flying domestically following scrutiny by the Canadian Transportation Agency, the country's aviation regulator, over concerns Flair's ownership was not sufficiently Canadian.
The agency had raised questions about the airline's relationship with its American backer, private-equity firm 777 Partners Ltd., initially suggesting in March that Flair could be in violation of Canadian foreign ownership rules.
Under the federal Transportation Act, at least 51 per cent of a domestic airline's voting shares must be Canadian-controlled, and no more than 25 per cent of the voting interest can be held by a single non-canadian company or person. The Miami-based private investment firm held a 25-per-cent stake in Flair until the airline overhauled its shareholder and loan agreements with 777.
The carrier responded to the CTA'S decision with a flash seat sale and discounted fares by 50 per cent. It uses an ultra-low-cost carrier model similar to Ryanair Holdings PLC and Wizz Air Hungary Ltd. in Europe and Spirit Airlines Inc. in the United States.