Flair Airlines has cut its flight schedule by more than 600 flights, but the low-cost carrier denies the reduction is a recent decision or a result of challenges in the market.
Data from Cirium, an aviation data company, shows Flair has cut more than 200 flights in each of March, April and May 2024 compared to 2023, a difference of more than eight per cent in each month.
In contrast, the data shows every other Canadian airline is expanding its schedule for the spring months of 2024, with the exception of Sunwing’s April schedule.
Stephen Jones, CEO of Flair Airlines said the flight reduction is not a new development, but has remained largely unchanged since August 2023.
“Every airline goes through different seasonal network patterns, some in summer and winter demands completely different through those two seasons, and so we just made our normal adjustments to the schedule months ago,” he told BNN Bloomberg in a television interview on Friday.
The Flair spokesperson said while its total flights are down, it has expanded its available seat miles (ASMs) by four per cent this year, as it switches its network to include longer flights, notably by including more flights to sunny destinations.
“This is what airlines do all the time,” Smith said. “They're always putting schedules on sale into the future so people can book into them. We put the schedule out last August for this period, and this is sort of a shoulder period in between winter and summer.”
Last month, Lynx Airlines abruptly ceased operations citing troubles dealing with inflation, fuel costs and regulatory costs among the issues it could not overcome. The news highlighted some of the challenges low-cost airlines – such as Flair – face in the Canadian market.
Smith said Lynx’s departure has led to some customer skepticism about the low-cost model, but in some ways it has helped Flair’s business.
“Whenever any business gets into trouble like that, people become a bit more concerned, but the upside for that for us actually has been that we've had a lot of opportunity to grow into the markets where they were,” he said.
“We're seeing super strong sales for the summer period, yields are up, the passenger numbers are up and so every cloud is a silver lining.”
Earlier this year, it was revealed Flair owes $67.2M in unpaid taxes and Flair CEO Stephen Jones mentioned in January the airline was expecting a “muted year” with a plan to return to growth in 2025.
“We are completely current with the CRA (Canada Revenue Agency),” Smith said Friday. “We've got a well-established agreement with them on the overdue importation duties and we're making those payments as they come due.”
Flair said it remains committed “to providing affordable travel options to all Canadians” and its shift to more sunny destinations over the winter months “has resonated well with our customers, resulting in substantially increased demand compared to previous years.”
With files from The Canadian Press