Flair Airlines route expansion plans grounded again
By Al Beeber - Lethbridge Herald on September 2, 2023.
LETHBRIDGE HERALDabeeber@lethbridgeherald.com Flair Airlines plans to fly from Lethbridge to Tucson, Arizona have been grounded yet again.The low-cost carrier announced to much fanfare in March of 2022 that it would start operating direct flights from Lethbridge to Arizona starting last December.
The plan was to have passengers board a Boeing 737 Max in Lethbridge on Thursday flights to Arizona’s second largest city which had a population of 542,629 as of last year. One-way flights were expected to cost about $125.
Flair, which has operated in Canada since 2017, changed its plans last November when it announced it was postponing the route until this winter due to supply chain issues which were impacting the availability critical equipment.
Flair said at the time that specialized equipment, including a ramp to board an aircraft, was needed.
At the time, Flair chief commercial officer Garth Lund said local demand for the service wasn’t an issue.
On Friday, City of Lethbridge Director of Corporate Services Jason Elliott said the City – along with the community and the region “is disappointed” to hear that Flair is not able to begin operations this winter “but we remain optimistic and committed to having those discussions with Flair for future expansion,” said Elliott.
“We can’t say much about Flair operations. From the City perspective, we felt that we were in a position to be able to be ready and move things forward. The discussions with Flair have been productive to this point and we remain optimistic we’ll get something going soon,” added Elliott.
Elliott said the City is in constant contact with Flair about route development options.
The Lethbridge airport is a little bit under-sized for a 737, said Elliott, so one of the City’s main objectives from a development point of view is expansion of the terminal to accommodate large numbers of passengers. Equally important is a runway expansion to accommodate a fully loaded and fuelled 737, he added.
“Flair’s been an excellent partner in terms of working with us to balance that and compromise some of their operational needs to work with us for that route expansion but generally, if we’re going to see expanded route options for Lethbridge and the region, that expansion is critical to our operations,” said Elliott.
The City is working from an advocacy perspective through city council with the province and other levels of government to try to access additional grant funding and anything we can find to assist with those expansion opportunities,” added Elliott.
That expanded airport will provide more possibilities for the city including for the new Agri-Food Hub and Trade Centre, Elliott added.
Elliott said it’s hard to say when the route will come here.
“The airline industry is a pretty volatile industry and lots of changes happen, a lot of important decisions made on a short notice so I think it would be inappropriate to speculate at this point and I think if we learned anything, it’s probably ‘let’s not draw a line in the sand and we don’t have to keep doing this over and over again.’ Let’s make sure that we’re ready.”
Flair in March had four leased planes seized because of overdue payments which caused flights to be cancelled.
On March 15, the airline said “Flair Airlines has championed a relentless mission to bring affordable airfare to all Canadians” and called the action taken by Airborne Capital “profiteering on the backs of Canadians and was entirely unexpected and unwarranted.” It launched a lawsuit against Airborne on March 14 with the Ontario Supreme Court of Justice.
Between April 1, 2022 and March 31 of this year, Flair had an average of just over 15 complaints per 100 flights, the highest number in Canada.
Flair did not return a request for comment from The Herald about its Lethbridge plans by presstime. Follow @albeebHerald on Twitter 4
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