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CFWAD wrote:
Daft enough to think? If something changes my reputable airline re books me - with limited to no additional charges or affected schedule. Some people do know their schedule that far in advance.

Sure, some people can afford to buy (more expensive) flexible and flexible tickets six months out. Pretty clear that they’re not the market ULCCs target or rely on.

When was the last time an air fare 6+ months out was cheaper than last minute? Airlines (AC, PD and WG as examples) have given their passengers the option of paying in installments and various payment options over the last almost 2 years.

CFWAD wrote:
I specifically mentioned WS and for their limited international travel they have more than enough strategic alliances to rebook their passengers - DL being the key player. .

Nothing like going through two long customs line up instead of one. The other Canadian airline is better at avoiding that.

Would be arguably better than spending an additional night, or worse, at your point of origin. I know the other Canadian airline is better at avoiding that. I made that argument to you previously. And it's also part of the reason I fly AC and Star Alliance partners

CFWAD wrote:
- I would agree, that vast majority of F8 flights are most likely not cancelled - but you can delay a flight so long you might as well have cancelled it (a ~2200 YVR-YYZ redye that was delayed until 0700??) A lot of their tactics truly seem to be an attempt to skew the CTA. .

Worth noting that F8’s current management wasn’t even consulted on the development of these APPRs. AC, WS et al provided such sound input that they’re … well…here’s what the NS small claims court has to say about them:

Worth noting the current Chairman at F8 absolutely had input and was highly involved thru ATAC on these discussions. F8 at the time was classified as a small carrier and was highly motivated to be involved due to the potential implications this had on them as a previous charter carrier.

Per article, FLAIR's CASM target excluding fuel is less than 6 cents.

https://airlinergs.com/issue-article/so ... ian-flair/

Some other interesting tidbits in there: Flair's operational team is in Edmonton HQ while their commercial team is in Vancouver.

Confirmation that Flair looks to fly lower frequency routes to stimulate demand.

Anyone knows the number of planes they currently have? it would be interesting to see utilization numbers as I've been checking constantly on flight radar and haven't seen more than 5 flights airborne at the time.

oceanbeat wrote:

Anyone knows the number of planes they currently have? it would be interesting to see utilization numbers as I've been checking constantly on flight radar and haven't seen more than 5 flights airborne at the time.

12 according to airfleet.net

QB737 wrote:

oceanbeat wrote:

Anyone knows the number of planes they currently have? it would be interesting to see utilization numbers as I've been checking constantly on flight radar and haven't seen more than 5 flights airborne at the time.

12 according to airfleet.net

December 2021 sked with 12 planes: 7.6 hours/day. Not good.

[threeid],[/threeid]If 7.6hrs a day is accurate, there is zero chance Flair are anywhere close to operating at break even.

6 cent casm ex fuel? Not a snowball’s chance.

Those frames require at least 11.5 hrs a day utilization, and probably more at the yields Flair is achieving to make the economics work. That means an asl close to 1,000 miles.

WS was getting 9.5 hrs a day out of their owned - 200 fleet, with an asl of under 400 miles over the first few years.

With -9 engines, they didn’t have true trans-con range, so they weren’t sidetracked and suckered in by all kinds of crazy city pairs the Max “can” do, but will struggle with without feed / flow at both ends.

The 120/125 seat aircraft were perfect for developing a viable, robust domestic feed network, something Flair has steadfastly avoided since day one.

Is there a staff shortage? Are there maintenance issues?
8 hrs/day seems way too low.

jimbo737 wrote:

[threeid],[/threeid]The 120/125 seat aircraft were perfect for developing a viable, robust domestic feed network, something Flair has steadfastly avoided since day one.

In other words Porter are onto something with the E95 coming.

SLC-YEG or YYC

August 2021 sked with 11 planes: 12.3 hours/day

A duck with a lawn chair duck taped to its back can make money operating in Canada in August when supply is always outweighed by demand.

The trick is to figure out how to operate 12 hours a day in January and for most of Feb, amongst other months, at compensatory yields.

So far I've seen the following planes flying: FLHI, FFLA, FLKC, FFLJ, FFBC, FLKD, FLEJ and FLKA some of them only two legs a days.
They must be struggling, pretty much all network on sale and available even for tomorrow's flights which means LF must be low.

oceanbeat wrote:

So far I've seen the following planes flying: FLHI, FFLA, FLKC, FFLJ, FFBC, FLKD, FLEJ and FLKA some of them only two legs a days.
They must be struggling, pretty much all network on sale and available even for tomorrow's flights which means LF must be low.

Every airline in Canada is struggling right now. On several days over the next two weeks, AC and WS are pricing $1-$2 cheaper than F8 ($135 v $137). Lots of $135 fares there for the taking. Feb YYZ-YVR fares are in the same state - at $115 for both AC and WS.

Not sure how much anyone can read into the current state of play - Canada is back in a full-blown lockdown. Not sure there’s much to be gained by flying empty airplanes.

ElPistolero wrote:

oceanbeat wrote:

So far I've seen the following planes flying: FLHI, FFLA, FLKC, FFLJ, FFBC, FLKD, FLEJ and FLKA some of them only two legs a days.
They must be struggling, pretty much all network on sale and available even for tomorrow's flights which means LF must be low.

Every airline in Canada is struggling right now. On several days over the next two weeks, AC and WS are pricing $1-$2 cheaper than F8 ($135 v $137). Lots of $135 fares there for the taking. Feb YYZ-YVR fares are in the same state - at $115 for both AC and WS.

Not sure how much anyone can read into the current state of play - Canada is back in a full-blown lockdown. Not sure there’s much to be gained by flying empty airplanes.

"Full blown lockdown" is a tad dramatic. Didn't realize all of Canada is shut down *rolls eyes* planes are emptier than they were but certainly not empty

I work ground for these folks in Mesa, AZ and let me tell you how the loads are going. We get both YEG, YYC, YYZ and YVR for the last 2 months, and not one day has there been more than 30 people in or outbound. I have no idea how they can keep up the 2x a week frequency from each of those airports with that low of load factor.

Swoop and WestJet are competing on the same routes and they are struggling big time to put butts in seats.

Starting 01/13/22, all Thursday and Friday flights are canceled in all of January “due to Covid related restrictions.”

The MAX sure are beautiful aircraft, but man they are empty...

777luver wrote:

"Full blown lockdown" is a tad dramatic. Didn't realize all of Canada is shut down *rolls eyes* planes are emptier than they were but certainly not empty

You’re right. Half-blown lockdown. Better?

Point being, Canada is currently under far more onerous restrictions than the US, UK, most EU countries and so on. The country’s two largest provinces - ON and QC - especially. Can’t even eat in a restaurant anymore.

Not sure about what to make of your “empty planes” straw man; never said any of them are actively flying empty planes. Just said it wouldn’t make sense for F8 (or WS or AC) to fly empty planes if/when another COVID wave is suppressing demand (why, yes, people often self-police when restrictions are in place, which results in suppressed demand - aka $115 YYZ-YVR fares on AC/WS).

Halfan wrote:

I work ground for these folks in Mesa, AZ and let me tell you how the loads are going. We get both YEG, YYC, YYZ and YVR for the last 2 months, and not one day has there been more than 30 people in or outbound. I have no idea how they can keep up the 2x a week frequency from each of those airports with that low of load factor.

Swoop and WestJet are competing on the same routes and they are struggling big time to put butts in seats.

Starting 01/13/22, all Thursday and Friday flights are canceled in all of January “due to Covid related restrictions.”

The MAX sure are beautiful aircraft, but man they are empty...

Interesting, but not surprising.Way too much capacity.

IceCream wrote:

Halfan wrote:

I work ground for these folks in Mesa, AZ and let me tell you how the loads are going. We get both YEG, YYC, YYZ and YVR for the last 2 months, and not one day has there been more than 30 people in or outbound. I have no idea how they can keep up the 2x a week frequency from each of those airports with that low of load factor.

Swoop and WestJet are competing on the same routes and they are struggling big time to put butts in seats.

Starting 01/13/22, all Thursday and Friday flights are canceled in all of January “due to Covid related restrictions.”

The MAX sure are beautiful aircraft, but man they are empty...

Interesting, but not surprising.Way too much capacity.

YVR and YEG must be the exception because I checked flights from YYZ to YUL, YYG, YQT and AC and WS are most of the time 3 times more expensive.

According to the "experts" Canada is in its peak for Omicron right now. If it dies as fast here as it did in South Africa, let's see how things shake out in 2-3months time.

Flair's "inspiration" Wizz Air is ordering planes big time: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... el-rebound

Hope to see them in Dominican Rep this year.

Has the YOW-LAS route been removed from the schedule? It's showing up starting in March on flightconnextions and bookable when you manually select the departing and arriving airports in the URL on their website, but not available on their search engine or any search engine.

Their city pairings have been incredibly sporadic it's hard to keep track of what routes they've suspended vs operating. You almost need to be paid 120k+ and have an office, with dartboard included, in downtown Vancouver to know where those Boeing's are going these days.

The reliance on 3rd party bookings and lack of internal I.T. support is giving countless erroneous information to their customers. Whether it's lack of communication between ancillary purchases at time of booking vs what is shown at Check-In, or simple communication regarding a flight delay or cancellation. Word is spreading quite quickly among Canadians how incredibly ludicrous their services have been.

A recent YOW-YHZ flight, after circling for weather, diverted to YKF (surprise! A Flair base) to uplift additional fuel. And, per various passenger reports, picked up additional passengers to continue on back to YHZ. As a former SOCC DM, this is an incredible stretch and something I could only conceive considering if it involved crew duty and/or deadheading crew to YHZ, or AOG. Clearly this was a commercial decision but the optics are terrible for such a small carrier.

CFWAD wrote:

Their city pairings have been incredibly sporadic it's hard to keep track of what routes they've suspended vs operating. You almost need to be paid 120k+ and have an office, with dartboard included, in downtown Vancouver to know where those Boeing's are going these days.

The reliance on 3rd party bookings and lack of internal I.T. support is giving countless erroneous information to their customers. Whether it's lack of communication between ancillary purchases at time of booking vs what is shown at Check-In, or simple communication regarding a flight delay or cancellation. Word is spreading quite quickly among Canadians how incredibly ludicrous their services have been.

If you’re just going to repeat TripAdvisor complaints here, you might as well post the link:

https://www.tripadvisor.ca/Airline_Revi ... r-Airlines

Look carefully and you’ll even spot a false flag that - I’ll wager good money - came from one of our contributors here. Its hard to miss - it’s contradicted by a subsequent, equally angry complaint (complete with 1/5 rating) by someone who evidently actually flew F8. Guess other airlines’ PR teams are becoming more active on F8. Should at least have the decency to fly them first.

To the extent that TripAdvisor reviews dictate passenger behaviour, F8 has lucked out with timing, given the hammering WS and WO have been subjected to in recent days.

https://www.tripadvisor.ca/Airline_Revi ... ml#REVIEWS

https://www.tripadvisor.ca/Airline_Revi ... iews-Swoop

Guess F8 aren’t exactly deviating from the Canadian average here. As I’ve said all along, the generally poor offerings from Canadian airlines (especially those that like to think they’re better) give the F8s and Lynxes hope.

(PS- CrewBunk will no doubt find this tale about a missed wedding on WS amusing: “I was going to an important wedding for 27th of dec so i took a flight for dec 26th 2021 i was at the airport for 7 hrs then the flight was cancelled i was put on another flight for the next day same time it was delayed over 3 hrs. I missed the whole wedding which was the purpose of my travel.” Like I said the first time they used the wedding-next-day example … bigger carrier does not always mean better outcome).

CFWAD wrote:

A recent YOW-YHZ flight, after circling for weather, diverted to YKF (surprise! A Flair base) to uplift additional fuel. And, per various passenger reports, picked up additional passengers to continue on back to YHZ. As a former SOCC DM, this is an incredible stretch and something I could only conceive considering if it involved crew duty and/or deadheading crew to YHZ, or AOG. Clearly this was a commercial decision but the optics are terrible for such a small carrier.

That’s an interesting one.

Was there a separate YKF-YHZ flight scheduled for that time that they combined? Was there another YHZ-bound flight redirected to YKF around the same time that they combined?

Those seem more likely than pax just waiting around at YKF in the hope that some YHZ bound flight would end up there, or selling tickets while the aircraft was diverting. Not particularly objectionable to me - would have been objectionable if they flew YOW-YKF-YHZ without attempting YHZ first.

That aside, diverting to a hub rather than origin is fairly common. And, speaking from experience, annoying. But probably better than being stuck in YSJ (or wherever) with a timed out crew.

Checked YouTube for trip reports for Flair...most are surprisingly positive. Seems like it is attracting a younger audience and folks are liking the 737MAX.

ElPistolero wrote:

CFWAD wrote:

A recent YOW-YHZ flight, after circling for weather, diverted to YKF (surprise! A Flair base) to uplift additional fuel. And, per various passenger reports, picked up additional passengers to continue on back to YHZ. As a former SOCC DM, this is an incredible stretch and something I could only conceive considering if it involved crew duty and/or deadheading crew to YHZ, or AOG. Clearly this was a commercial decision but the optics are terrible for such a small carrier.

That’s an interesting one.

If anything I see it as agility and not terrible optics. Airlines like Ethiopian perform similar tactics where operational challenges exist, with, for example, a nonstop from from Abidjan would stop in N'Djamena to uplift based on an aircraft that's gone tech at NDJ. Sure, impact to customers can exist, but I expect it's all well calculated.

berari wrote:

ElPistolero wrote:

CFWAD wrote:

A recent YOW-YHZ flight, after circling for weather, diverted to YKF (surprise! A Flair base) to uplift additional fuel. And, per various passenger reports, picked up additional passengers to continue on back to YHZ. As a former SOCC DM, this is an incredible stretch and something I could only conceive considering if it involved crew duty and/or deadheading crew to YHZ, or AOG. Clearly this was a commercial decision but the optics are terrible for such a small carrier.

That’s an interesting one.

If anything I see it as agility and not terrible optics. Airlines like Ethiopian perform similar tactics where operational challenges exist, with, for example, a nonstop from from Abidjan would stop in N'Djamena to uplift based on an aircraft that's gone tech at NDJ. Sure, impact to customers can exist, but I expect it's all well calculated.

In fairness, it’s probably strange for pax - circle around Halifax for two hours, then go to YKF (not origin/YOW), pick up more pax and try again.

The mitigating factor is that the flight was quite clearly heading to YHZ and would have landed there if the weather hadn’t been a problem.

At that point, they’re in a damned if they do, damned if they don’t. Fly back to base, pick up fuel, more pax heading for YHZ (possibly scheduled on that aircraft later that day), possibly new crew (“bad optics”). Or, park at YSJ, take an airframe and crew out of the equation for several hours, and create cascading effects (less immediate “bad optics”, but with the potential for worse optics as the cascading effects kick in).

I can appreciate a pax not being understanding (I’ve been in some of these “why have we landed in XYZ?” diversions, and been a little annoyed at the time). But then again, if F8 had stranded pax in YKF because the plane was waiting it out in YSJ, we’d probably have the same poster quoting TripAdvisor complaints from the folk stranded at YKF (or elsewhere, what with one airframe basically out of action due to weather).

Granted, not sure how much stock to put on TripAdvisor for accuracy on anything - there’s even a curious post claiming F8’s OTP is 20% and their cancellation rate is 35% (!?!) - albeit no source. It was posted yesterday, by a poster whose only other contribution on anything was in October 2021 - to say that he would “never again” fly F8. Clearly some people are repeat pax after bad - to wit, “NEVER AGAIN” - F8 experiences, so the future isn’t all that bleak for them .

Alternatively, certain competitors’ PR hacks are out spreading misleading information. As I recall, one Canadian airline has already been formally warned about providing “misleading” pax, so wouldn’t be unprecedented (or out of character, for that matter).

I decided to check out their website and see where they fly and with what frequencies.

The site is not designed to do so quickly. You have to pick one route at a time and you get guided to a car/hotel choice each time.

Having said that I looked at 2 markets YUL (Montreal-my home) and YKF (Kitchener-a supposed hub) for all flights during the week of Jan.24-31.

YKF has a total of 12 bookable flights to 6 different markets. That's an average of almost 2 flights/day. It looks like they route 1 aircraft per day from YYC/YVR/YEG to YKK and on to YHZ/FLL/Orlando. and back.

YUL has 13 bookable flights to 4 markets. Again, it looks like 1 aircraft YVR-YUL-YYZ and back with a YHZ and FLL replacing YYZ for a couple of turns.

So that's 2 aircraft doing pretty full days.

I'm sure a similar pattern exits for YOW for 1 aircraft and YYZ with maybe 3 aircraft?

That leaves 6 more aircraft to do the rest of the country.
They seem to be tagging sun flights for 1 week cheap weekend roundtrips and Canadian long haul domestic trunk routes.

I simply don't have the patience to do any further analysis but am I crazy or it does seem to make some sense?

I think it's veering into conspiracy territory to suggest the reviews are being made by AC/WS. The fact of the matter is that sometimes Flair's service isn't very reliable and often spotty. Flair has potential but they need a bit more strategy IMO.

ElPistolero wrote:

(PS- CrewBunk will no doubt find this tale about a missed wedding on WS amusing: “I was going to an important wedding for 27th of dec so i took a flight for dec 26th 2021 i was at the airport for 7 hrs then the flight was cancelled i was put on another flight for the next day same time it was delayed over 3 hrs. I missed the whole wedding which was the purpose of my travel.” Like I said the first time they used the wedding-next-day example … bigger carrier does not always mean better outcome).

Actually, I don’t read online reviews of airlines, as they are usually very one-sided. It’s unlikely the passenger would know the reason for the disruption. The only critiques I read are on this website.

Truth be told though, it breaks my heart to read of a passenger’s ruined plans, for any reason. In my opinion, an airline should be promoting reliability and punctuality. Long gone are the days when crossing Canada in a North Star using ranges for navigation and approaches.

But then, regardless of the airline, I’m the type that would rather be a day early than an hour late. I do acknowledge though, that often is not possible for some people.

I recall years ago flying a YYZ-YUL flight. After pushback, and in line for the runway, ATC metering started. We were now looking at a one hour delay. A passenger wanted us to go back to the gate and drop him off as now he would miss his meeting. We couldn’t.

The First Officer was scoffing at someone leaving a flight to the last minute. I reminded him, that reliability is exactly what we are selling. With walk up fares over $400, we damned well better deliver it. Internally, I can tell you, System Operation Control is brutal with Rapidair flights. They are given a very high priority. And with yields over a buck a mile, they should!

IceCream wrote:

I think it's veering into conspiracy territory to suggest the reviews are being made by AC/WS. The fact of the matter is that sometimes Flair's service isn't very reliable and often spotty. Flair has potential but they need a bit more strategy IMO.

I’m sure they’re screwing up at least as badly as WO these days. That said, there’s no point pretending that this forum hasn’t witnessed all types of conspiracy theories about F8 go mostly unchallenged - everything from accusations about F8 being a Ponzi schemes to hatchet job journalism trying to link F8 to cocaine smuggling.

Don’t see anything wrong with pointing out that very similar same claims are now being posted on TripAdvisor (yep, there’s even an allegation on TripAdvisor referring to F8 as a “ponzi scheme”) along with all kinds of claims about OTP and cancellation rates we’ve seen here. That’s not run-of-the-mill stuff that people put in their trip reviews when they’re talking about their most recent flight, certainly not 3 months after pledging to never fly F8 again.

In which case, we need to acknowledge that TripAdvisor reviews are being tampered with (not really fussed about who’s behind it, although Occam’s razor is is pretty clear) and now parrot questionable claims from this site. Ergo, citing those trip reviews as a source of “passenger reports” to reinforce dubious claims here sets us up in an infinite loop of self-reinforcing silliness and falsehoods.

ElPistolero wrote:

IceCream wrote:

I think it's veering into conspiracy territory to suggest the reviews are being made by AC/WS. The fact of the matter is that sometimes Flair's service isn't very reliable and often spotty. Flair has potential but they need a bit more strategy IMO.

I’m sure they’re screwing up at least as badly as WO these days. That said, there’s no point pretending that this forum hasn’t witnessed all types of conspiracy theories about F8 go mostly unchallenged - everything from accusations about F8 being a Ponzi schemes to hatchet job journalism trying to link F8 to cocaine smuggling.

Don’t see anything wrong with pointing out that very similar same claims are now being posted on TripAdvisor (yep, there’s even an allegation on TripAdvisor referring to F8 as a “ponzi scheme”) along with all kinds of claims about OTP and cancellation rates we’ve seen here. That’s not run-of-the-mill stuff that people put in their trip reviews when they’re talking about their most recent flight, certainly not 3 months after pledging to never fly F8 again.

In which case, we need to acknowledge that TripAdvisor reviews are being tampered with (not really fussed about who’s behind it, although Occam’s razor is is pretty clear) and now parrot questionable claims from this site. Ergo, citing those trip reviews as a source of “passenger reports” to reinforce dubious claims here sets us up in an infinite loop of self-reinforcing silliness and falsehoods.

Well, I do agree that the vast majority of people don't write reviews for flights that go normally. You're right that Flair's reviews are lower because only people who had a bad experience end up providing reviews. That being said if there are fake reviews that's unacceptable, especially since flair is still starting out.

IceCream wrote:

ElPistolero wrote:

IceCream wrote:

I think it's veering into conspiracy territory to suggest the reviews are being made by AC/WS. The fact of the matter is that sometimes Flair's service isn't very reliable and often spotty. Flair has potential but they need a bit more strategy IMO.

I’m sure they’re screwing up at least as badly as WO these days. That said, there’s no point pretending that this forum hasn’t witnessed all types of conspiracy theories about F8 go mostly unchallenged - everything from accusations about F8 being a Ponzi schemes to hatchet job journalism trying to link F8 to cocaine smuggling.

Don’t see anything wrong with pointing out that very similar same claims are now being posted on TripAdvisor (yep, there’s even an allegation on TripAdvisor referring to F8 as a “ponzi scheme”) along with all kinds of claims about OTP and cancellation rates we’ve seen here. That’s not run-of-the-mill stuff that people put in their trip reviews when they’re talking about their most recent flight, certainly not 3 months after pledging to never fly F8 again.

In which case, we need to acknowledge that TripAdvisor reviews are being tampered with (not really fussed about who’s behind it, although Occam’s razor is is pretty clear) and now parrot questionable claims from this site. Ergo, citing those trip reviews as a source of “passenger reports” to reinforce dubious claims here sets us up in an infinite loop of self-reinforcing silliness and falsehoods.

Well, I do agree that the vast majority of people don't write reviews for flights that go normally. You're right that Flair's reviews are lower because only people who had a bad experience end up providing reviews. That being said if there are fake reviews that's unacceptable, especially since flair is still starting out.

With all the talk about Canadian culture, we should acknowledge the competition is particularly nasty. It is not unusual for attempts at disruption and disparagement. There are plenty of lawsuits and government complaints being thrown around and I strongly suspect one plaintiff in a lawsuit related to F8 is simultaneously posting nasty things about them in various forums.

YKF has a total of 12 bookable flights to 6 different markets. That's an average of almost 2 flights/day. It looks like they route 1 aircraft per day from YYC/YVR/YEG to YKF and on to YHZ/FLL/Orlando. and back.

YUL has 13 bookable flights to 4 markets. Again, it looks like 1 aircraft YVR-YUL-YYZ and back with a YHZ and FLL replacing YYZ for a couple of turns.

So that's 2 aircraft doing pretty full days.

I'm sure a similar pattern exits for YOW for 1 aircraft and YYZ with maybe 3 aircraft?

That leaves 6 more aircraft to do the rest of the country.
They seem to be tagging sun flights for 1 week cheap weekend roundtrips and Canadian long haul domestic trunk routes.

I simply don't have the patience to do any further analysis but am I crazy or it does seem to make some sense?[/quote]

At YKF, they have 1 plane operating YKF-(FLL/SFB)-YKF-(YYC/YEG)-YKF in a day and another one doing YKF-YHZ-YUL-YHZ-YKF on some days, and YKF-YHZ-YKF-YVR-YKF on others. This summer the YHZ-YUL flight seems to be operated as part of a YOW-YHZ-YUL-YHZ-YOW turn rather than from a YKF based plane.

For FLL, they have 2 planes doing a triangular routing on the same day, YYZ-FLL-YUL-YYZ for one and YYZ-YUL-FLL-YYZ for the other. The same triangular routing method can be found on flights to BUR from YEG and YVR.

Also, the YVR-YUL flight is operated as part of a YVR-(YEG/YYC)-YVR-YUL-YVR routing.

What's interesting is that the YUL-YYC flight scheduled for this summer is actually routed YUL-YYC-YUL and not the other way around, suggesting that the aircraft may be based in YUL for the summer. (maybe more routes to come in a future announcement?)

[threeid][/threeid]

Juju2004 wrote:

Has the YOW-LAS route been removed from the schedule? It's showing up starting in March on flightconnextions and bookable when you manually select the departing and arriving airports in the URL on their website, but not available on their search engine or any search engine.

That's odd as YOW-LAS was pulled two months after it was announced. These aren't the right conditions for YOW-LAS to succeed. Perhaps next fall. It's one of several routes F8's announced only to not launch. Some of those later did launch during a re-announcement.

CrewBunk wrote:

ElPistolero wrote:

(PS- CrewBunk will no doubt find this tale about a missed wedding on WS amusing: “I was going to an important wedding for 27th of dec so i took a flight for dec 26th 2021 i was at the airport for 7 hrs then the flight was cancelled i was put on another flight for the next day same time it was delayed over 3 hrs. I missed the whole wedding which was the purpose of my travel.” Like I said the first time they used the wedding-next-day example … bigger carrier does not always mean better outcome).

Actually, I don’t read online reviews of airlines, as they are usually very one-sided. It’s unlikely the passenger would know the reason for the disruption. The only critiques I read are on this website.

Truth be told though, it breaks my heart to read of a passenger’s ruined plans, for any reason. In my opinion, an airline should be promoting reliability and punctuality. Long gone are the days when crossing Canada in a North Star using ranges for navigation and approaches.

But then, regardless of the airline, I’m the type that would rather be a day early than an hour late. I do acknowledge though, that often is not possible for some people.

I recall years ago flying a YYZ-YUL flight. After pushback, and in line for the runway, ATC metering started. We were now looking at a one hour delay. A passenger wanted us to go back to the gate and drop him off as now he would miss his meeting. We couldn’t.

The First Officer was scoffing at someone leaving a flight to the last minute. I reminded him, that reliability is exactly what we are selling. With walk up fares over $400, we damned well better deliver it. Internally, I can tell you, System Operation Control is brutal with Rapidair flights. They are given a very high priority. And with yields over a buck a mile, they should!

Ironically on Monday not a single YOW-YYZ Rapidair operated...or any YYZ flight for that matter thanks to the massive snowstrom. But yeah I get your point. In normal times of hourly service, Rapidairs are arguably AC's most important domestic flights. Leave a bad impression there often enough, then those time-sensitive biz pax might think twice about flying you next time on a transcon. PD managed to squeeze in a couple of YTZ flights though. Not much you can do on a day like today though.

Flair do leave you scratching your head sometimes. Back last May when F8 launched YOW, YYZ was in the initial list of cities with daily service. Not long after they added 6 additional weekly flights. You'd think that points to a route having success. However, at the end of the summer season, the route was yanked. If it wasn't doing well, why would you almost double a route's capacity? Beyond weird.

I remember seeing the boarding of a YYZ-YOW flight with Flair this summer while waiting for mine. Barely 60 people on board.

Juju2004 wrote:

I remember seeing the boarding of a YYZ-YOW flight with Flair this summer while waiting for mine. Barely 60 people on board.

Part of F8’s problem on that route was the departure times sucked.

Also the fact that they don't really think about who's flying with them. For example on the YUL-YYZ sector, most people fly with them for a quick weekend trip without any heavy luggage and stuff. The fact that they only have 1 daily flight out of YYZ in the morning is a huge roadblock to that. Getting to YYZ costs you 50-60$ but coming back on an evening flight costs more than 150. If they added an evening flight to YUL, Loads of people would go on 1-2 days trips with them and the flight would pretty much always be full.

I am really not surprised about some of the complaints on the trip advisor about Flair, to be honest they are all pretty similar to complaints for the other major airlines. What I find interesting is that people complain about luggage and then not honoring the return pre-payment (most of these are user issues when booking, you have to select the option for bagging for each leg, many people miss it). Complaining about the cost of drinks... its a no frills service, you literally pay for the seat belt. While it does suck being stuck in another city, if you have travelled anywhere internationally and used LCC's, you know that you have to accept your trip may be delayed significantly if a flight gets cancelled. I would not use them as a way to connect to international flights.

I have been very fortunate to fly with them, they have been great. I love that even this year I get to take a direct flight instead of connecting through Toronto or Calgary, even paying for my seat and bag in the hold, I saved close to $300 on a flight and some of my own time.

I am sure that YYZ-YOW leg was purely to position the aircraft to YOW for the rest of the day. It would appear now they have a crew and aircraft based in YOW, taking away the need for a money losing pairing.

While I don't advocate for ignorance when it comes to doing your own travel research, I reiterate again I can only assume a vast majority of bookings are coming off of 3rd party sites. It's very easy to become #1 on a flight search when you load GDS with the bottom of the barrel low fares. Where the problem lies is that these 3rd party sites may not be as bold as flyflair.com when it comes to addressing the added fees and charges. And there is clearly a disconnect with their I.T. and back end systems not recognizing purchases from some of these sites. There are countless comments about ZERO notification when it comes to flight cancellations. It would also appear these 3rd parties are not always properly processing added fees, etc.

When you break it down, however, the tally of negative reviews for such a small, short-lived airline is staggering compared to the much larger and senior AC and WS:

F8 - 1,719 negative reviews out of 2,806 (61%)
WO - 690 negative reviews out of 1586 (44%)
AC - 5,492 negative reviews out of 26,972 (20%)
WS - 2,122 negative reviews out of 15,943 (13%)

CrewBunk wrote:

ElPistolero wrote:

(PS- CrewBunk will no doubt find this tale about a missed wedding on WS amusing: “I was going to an important wedding for 27th of dec so i took a flight for dec 26th 2021 i was at the airport for 7 hrs then the flight was cancelled i was put on another flight for the next day same time it was delayed over 3 hrs. I missed the whole wedding which was the purpose of my travel.” Like I said the first time they used the wedding-next-day example … bigger carrier does not always mean better outcome).

Actually, I don’t read online reviews of airlines, as they are usually very one-sided. It’s unlikely the passenger would know the reason for the disruption. The only critiques I read are on this website.

Truth be told though, it breaks my heart to read of a passenger’s ruined plans, for any reason. In my opinion, an airline should be promoting reliability and punctuality. Long gone are the days when crossing Canada in a North Star using ranges for navigation and approaches.

But then, regardless of the airline, I’m the type that would rather be a day early than an hour late. I do acknowledge though, that often is not possible for some people.

I recall years ago flying a YYZ-YUL flight. After pushback, and in line for the runway, ATC metering started. We were now looking at a one hour delay. A passenger wanted us to go back to the gate and drop him off as now he would miss his meeting. We couldn’t.

The First Officer was scoffing at someone leaving a flight to the last minute. I reminded him, that reliability is exactly what we are selling. With walk up fares over $400, we damned well better deliver it. Internally, I can tell you, System Operation Control is brutal with Rapidair flights. They are given a very high priority. And with yields over a buck a mile, they should!

I posted that partly in jest - but also to highlight that flying involves a lot of luck-of-the-draw that aren’t fixable when things go sideways. There’s a world in which said pax would have made it to the wedding if he flew F8 instead (assuming they fly that route).

Which is to say, I think buying a ticket on the basis of potential service recovery is a mug’s game; either build in more time or buy some rock solid insurance. Especially if one is a non-status basic Y pax (aka lowest of the low priorities). Lots of people complaining about being out of hotel money on WS these days… (imagine they are on AC too).

CFWAD wrote:

I am sure that YYZ-YOW leg was purely to position the aircraft to YOW for the rest of the day. It would appear now they have a crew and aircraft based in YOW, taking away the need for a money losing pairing.

While I don't advocate for ignorance when it comes to doing your own travel research, I reiterate again I can only assume a vast majority of bookings are coming off of 3rd party sites. It's very easy to become #1 on a flight search when you load GDS with the bottom of the barrel low fares. Where the problem lies is that these 3rd party sites may not be as bold as flyflair.com when it comes to addressing the added fees and charges. And there is clearly a disconnect with their I.T. and back end systems not recognizing purchases from some of these sites. There are countless comments about ZERO notification when it comes to flight cancellations. It would also appear these 3rd parties are not always properly processing added fees, etc.

When you break it down, however, the tally of negative reviews for such a small, short-lived airline is staggering compared to the much larger and senior AC and WS:

F8 - 1,719 negative reviews out of 2,806 (61%)
WO - 690 negative reviews out of 1586 (44%)
AC - 5,492 negative reviews out of 26,972 (20%)
WS - 2,122 negative reviews out of 15,943 (13%)

Red herring.

Notwithstanding the obvious presence of fake reviews (some of which read like copy and pastes from a.net, and have nothing to do with flying F8), every airline in Canada is getting hammered with negative reviews right now.

You can count the number of 3+/5 reviews (assuming 2/5 is “negative”) on the first 10 pages of WS reviews on 1 hand (i.e. less than 10%).

Which is to say, if these TripAdvisor scouring pax are basing their decisions on TripAdvisor reviews (rather than, say, price), the first 10 pages of WS reviews (if they even get that far - not that it changes much by page 15) will have them scrambling to avoid WS (making F8 an option again).

https://www.tripadvisor.ca/Airline_Revi ... ml#REVIEWS

So, sure, F8 is having (and causing) many bad days. I don’t doubt it. But to the extent that TripAdvisor reviews matter, they’re unexpectedly lucky because WS&Co are doing just as badly, if not worse.

Yes, from what I have heard WestJet call centre is fully unreachable right now, major issues going on there.

YUL-based aircraft rings a bell. I do recall the CEO saying that they felt there was significant opportunity for FLAIR in Quebec.

"Flair is providing FREE* base fare on all routes for travel in the month of February!
*Limited seats available for a limited time. Offer valid until Jan. 27 or while seats last."

https://flyflair.com/?gclid=CjwKCAiA3L6PBhBvEiwAINlJ9GKCsWQVVT45DRsnffWSgnefhDqCcDSE8HkkLVAn2MEiVvNpO7LPTRoCimkQAvD_BwE
https://twitter.com/FlairAirlines/status/1486001382113124360

Seems rather desperate. Airline Fire Sales like this never tend to end well in Canada.

CFWAD wrote:

"Flair is providing FREE* base fare on all routes for travel in the month of February!
*Limited seats available for a limited time. Offer valid until Jan. 27 or while seats last."

https://flyflair.com/?gclid=CjwKCAiA3L6PBhBvEiwAINlJ9GKCsWQVVT45DRsnffWSgnefhDqCcDSE8HkkLVAn2MEiVvNpO7LPTRoCimkQAvD_BwE
https://twitter.com/FlairAirlines/status/1486001382113124360

Seems rather desperate. Airline Fire Sales like this never tend to end well in Canada.

Did a quick fare check; a YVR to YYC flight on Feb 7th is showing for $33.73, of that, is a $25 YVR AIF, $7.12 security fee, and $1.61 in taxes.

Noticed that the search automatically defaults to their basic bundle, which adds $51.77 to the fare, but allows you take a personal item, one piece of carry on luggage and a checked bag, instead of showing the promo fare which is only personal item only.

That is not sustainable. Reminds me of the days before Jetsgo abruptly stopped flying and went into creditor protection.

I guess kudos to them for highlighting the absurdity of AIFs in this country.

I will give YVR some credit for having one of the lower AIFs in Canada for such a large operation (and a discounted AIF for intra-provincial travel), but to pay $35 to fly out of YEG and YYC on top of your fare is abysmal ~25 years after it was initially introduced.

Can only imagine this is an attempt at a quick cash grab on the part of Flair. Collect all the ancillary fees, AIFs, taxes, etc. from this "promotion" and when the time comes, start cancelling and consolidating flights. Offer the new flight schedule or a "24-month credit". They may not have received money from your "fare" but they got it every other way.

Jetsgo announced an incredible Western expansion spree, ironically announcing YEG as their western-hub, in the Winter of 04/05. In an attempt to make payroll over the shoulder season, and in hopes they could remain financially fluid till the summer bookings spooled up, they started offering sales just like this. $1 "Loonie Fares" (they had offered this promo in the past, but was excessively pushed during this last ditch attempt). And this was done when there wasn't excessive and constantly changing travel restrictions and public health concerns.

It was $48.86 for me to book a R/T YXX-YYZ at the lowest fare possible (no YXX AIF). But then you see something like this https://flightaware.com/live/flight/FLE151/history/20220126/0015Z/CYYZ/CYXX

These sales are far less desperate than many suggest. Flair is highly dependent on ancillary revenue, that is their business model. I recently booked a one-way Flair flight (for 2) between YYC and YLW at 50% off base fare, this saved me $1.48. In saying this, I spent about $78.00 on seat selection and carry-on baggage which is fine with me.

markabcan wrote:

These sales are far less desperate than many suggest.

I don’t know of any financially sound companies that would even consider essentially giving away an unlimited amount of their product for an entire day.

I remember reading an interview with the founder of the notoriously successful JetsGo after it went bust. It stated that he made the decision to sell every flight for 1 cent (plus taxes) a few days before its demise in a last-ditch attempt to get at least some cash. Seems as if history may be repeating itself.

Side note: maybe this is just me, but I can’t see how advertising ‘free’ flights, then automatically adding on a $50 hand baggage bundle on top of taxes is going to convince anyone to book. Surely you’d just feel conned at first glance if you went on expecting to pay nothing, then saw the total price was $70?

Just wait until oil hits $150 a barrel. https://financialpost.com/commodities/e ... y-jpmorgan

I remember 2008 well. cleaned out a lot of low fare airlines.

Given that fuel represents the single biggest element of an airline’s cost base , high prices , will be a factor playing into air fares later in the year.

We may see an exacerbated impact on airlines as it is unlikely they will have significant hedging in place following nearly two years of disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. A certain financial challenge to many airlines who may not be hedged.