Someone is approving the money and thinks it makes sense. Wonder what it is.

Any business is a gamble at best , albeit some are smarter gambles than others

CrewBunk wrote:

jimbo737 wrote:

Besides, why share knowledge and expertise with people who obviously believe they've figured it all out themselves?

This makes me wonder …. why? Everything you state is in the public domain. And your economics/marketing opinions are basic common sense. Surely, those running Flair aren’t idiots, so again I have to wonder what their aim is. Even I could have figured out, YVR/YYC/YEG - YYZ/YOW/YUL makes far more sense than YVR-BUR.

It’s like Porter. What can their possible goal be? They’re going to get flattened trying to run an E195 against the low unit cost of a 737-800/MAX. The Deluces have been around a long time, they know how to run an airline. So when they signed the contracts for a bunch of E195s, they must have had something in mind. I’ll be damned though, if I can figure it out.

I'll be very interested to see how PD do with the new jungle jets, but it's not as simple as saying the max has better unit costs. If you can only sell 80-120 seats in a market like say YHZ-TPA or YOW-YEG (routes I can see PD flying eventually), then it's not always better to have a plane the size of the MAX. PD stays afloat with Q400s which don't need to be full to make money.

yzfElite wrote:

CrewBunk wrote:

jimbo737 wrote:

Besides, why share knowledge and expertise with people who obviously believe they've figured it all out themselves?

This makes me wonder …. why? Everything you state is in the public domain. And your economics/marketing opinions are basic common sense. Surely, those running Flair aren’t idiots, so again I have to wonder what their aim is. Even I could have figured out, YVR/YYC/YEG - YYZ/YOW/YUL makes far more sense than YVR-BUR.

It’s like Porter. What can their possible goal be? They’re going to get flattened trying to run an E195 against the low unit cost of a 737-800/MAX. The Deluces have been around a long time, they know how to run an airline. So when they signed the contracts for a bunch of E195s, they must have had something in mind. I’ll be damned though, if I can figure it out.

I'll be very interested to see how PD do with the new jungle jets, but it's not as simple as saying the max has better unit costs. If you can only sell 80-120 seats in a market like say YHZ-TPA or YOW-YEG (routes I can see PD flying eventually), then it's not always better to have a plane the size of the MAX. PD stays afloat with Q400s which don't need to be full to make money.

But Flair can and does fill a MAX on YOW-YEG so if it's a full E195 vs a full MAX, Flair wins on costs.

yzfElite wrote:

CrewBunk wrote:

jimbo737 wrote:

Besides, why share knowledge and expertise with people who obviously believe they've figured it all out themselves?

This makes me wonder …. why? Everything you state is in the public domain. And your economics/marketing opinions are basic common sense. Surely, those running Flair aren’t idiots, so again I have to wonder what their aim is. Even I could have figured out, YVR/YYC/YEG - YYZ/YOW/YUL makes far more sense than YVR-BUR.

It’s like Porter. What can their possible goal be? They’re going to get flattened trying to run an E195 against the low unit cost of a 737-800/MAX. The Deluces have been around a long time, they know how to run an airline. So when they signed the contracts for a bunch of E195s, they must have had something in mind. I’ll be damned though, if I can figure it out.

I'll be very interested to see how PD do with the new jungle jets, but it's not as simple as saying the max has better unit costs. If you can only sell 80-120 seats in a market like say YHZ-TPA or YOW-YEG (routes I can see PD flying eventually), then it's not always better to have a plane the size of the MAX. PD stays afloat with Q400s which don't need to be full to make money.

Are you suggesting that Porter's Q400's make money at any given l/f regardless of yield?

Acey wrote:

yzfElite wrote:

CrewBunk wrote:

This makes me wonder …. why? Everything you state is in the public domain. And your economics/marketing opinions are basic common sense. Surely, those running Flair aren’t idiots, so again I have to wonder what their aim is. Even I could have figured out, YVR/YYC/YEG - YYZ/YOW/YUL makes far more sense than YVR-BUR.

It’s like Porter. What can their possible goal be? They’re going to get flattened trying to run an E195 against the low unit cost of a 737-800/MAX. The Deluces have been around a long time, they know how to run an airline. So when they signed the contracts for a bunch of E195s, they must have had something in mind. I’ll be damned though, if I can figure it out.

I'll be very interested to see how PD do with the new jungle jets, but it's not as simple as saying the max has better unit costs. If you can only sell 80-120 seats in a market like say YHZ-TPA or YOW-YEG (routes I can see PD flying eventually), then it's not always better to have a plane the size of the MAX. PD stays afloat with Q400s which don't need to be full to make money.

But Flair can and does fill a MAX on YOW-YEG so if it's a full E195 vs a full MAX, Flair wins on costs.

Flair better hope that their TRASM exceeds TCASM by the cost of capital, which, these days, for most private equity investors, has to at least exceed the rate of inflation.

jimbo737 wrote:

yzfElite wrote:

CrewBunk wrote:

This makes me wonder …. why? Everything you state is in the public domain. And your economics/marketing opinions are basic common sense. Surely, those running Flair aren’t idiots, so again I have to wonder what their aim is. Even I could have figured out, YVR/YYC/YEG - YYZ/YOW/YUL makes far more sense than YVR-BUR.

It’s like Porter. What can their possible goal be? They’re going to get flattened trying to run an E195 against the low unit cost of a 737-800/MAX. The Deluces have been around a long time, they know how to run an airline. So when they signed the contracts for a bunch of E195s, they must have had something in mind. I’ll be damned though, if I can figure it out.

I'll be very interested to see how PD do with the new jungle jets, but it's not as simple as saying the max has better unit costs. If you can only sell 80-120 seats in a market like say YHZ-TPA or YOW-YEG (routes I can see PD flying eventually), then it's not always better to have a plane the size of the MAX. PD stays afloat with Q400s which don't need to be full to make money.

Are you suggesting that Porter's Q400's make money at any given l/f regardless of yield?

No, just saying that bigger isn't always best. I just think they could likely do better in thin markets with smaller planes than bigger. The same reason AC has E175/A220, it allows them routes and frequencies that all MAX wouldn't allow them to have.

Acey wrote:

yzfElite wrote:

CrewBunk wrote:

This makes me wonder …. why? Everything you state is in the public domain. And your economics/marketing opinions are basic common sense. Surely, those running Flair aren’t idiots, so again I have to wonder what their aim is. Even I could have figured out, YVR/YYC/YEG - YYZ/YOW/YUL makes far more sense than YVR-BUR.

It’s like Porter. What can their possible goal be? They’re going to get flattened trying to run an E195 against the low unit cost of a 737-800/MAX. The Deluces have been around a long time, they know how to run an airline. So when they signed the contracts for a bunch of E195s, they must have had something in mind. I’ll be damned though, if I can figure it out.

I'll be very interested to see how PD do with the new jungle jets, but it's not as simple as saying the max has better unit costs. If you can only sell 80-120 seats in a market like say YHZ-TPA or YOW-YEG (routes I can see PD flying eventually), then it's not always better to have a plane the size of the MAX. PD stays afloat with Q400s which don't need to be full to make money.

But Flair can and does fill a MAX on YOW-YEG so if it's a full E195 vs a full MAX, Flair wins on costs.

On one route. You don't have a fleet for one route. PD is very popular in the east, WS was certainly unable to succeed with 737s in those parts. I don't see Flair flying YYT-YHZ or YQM-YUL with a Max, there just isn't the traffic, but PD if they build a big enough market can likely fly their 195s to places like YQX/YYT/YDF/YYG/YHZ/YQM etc.

yzfElite wrote:

Acey wrote:

yzfElite wrote:

I'll be very interested to see how PD do with the new jungle jets, but it's not as simple as saying the max has better unit costs. If you can only sell 80-120 seats in a market like say YHZ-TPA or YOW-YEG (routes I can see PD flying eventually), then it's not always better to have a plane the size of the MAX. PD stays afloat with Q400s which don't need to be full to make money.

But Flair can and does fill a MAX on YOW-YEG so if it's a full E195 vs a full MAX, Flair wins on costs.

On one route. You don't have a fleet for one route. PD is very popular in the east, WS was certainly unable to succeed with 737s in those parts. I don't see Flair flying YYT-YHZ or YQM-YUL with a Max, there just isn't the traffic, but PD if they build a big enough market can likely fly their 195s to places like YQX/YYT/YDF/YYG/YHZ/YQM etc.

I'm not doubting PD's popularity in the east. You're the one that mentioned YOW-YEG, to me it's clear they'll lose there. Nobody is saying YQX is a hotly contested market for 189-seaters.

Flair has taken delivery of its 22nd 737 MAX 8, C-FLER, and to celebrate it's flown straight to the Arizonian desert to join the now 9 tails that are inactive. On top of that, there's five more frames sitting in Seattle awaiting delivery to Flair. April Fools is over, right?

TexasAirCorp wrote:

Flair has taken delivery of its 22nd 737 MAX 8, C-FLER, and to celebrate it's flown straight to the Arizonian desert to join the now 9 tails that are inactive. On top of that, there's five more frames sitting in Seattle awaiting delivery to Flair. April Fools is over, right?

Has Flair actually taken delivery?

They are technically 777 Partner’s planes, not Flair’s. It’s possible that 777 Partners took delivery for contractual reasons (avoid late fees) but the plane is not actually leased out to Flair yet (I.e. Flair is not paying for the stores planes).

Polot wrote:

Has Flair actually taken delivery?

They are technically 777 Partner’s planes, not Flair’s. It’s possible that 777 Partners took delivery for contractual reasons (avoid late fees) but the plane is not actually leased out to Flair yet (I.e. Flair is not paying for the stores planes).

Not these new ones. The ex-Smartwings birds are being leased directly to Flair, C-FLER in particular from AerCap, with no contractual involvement from 777. Boeing has the customer listed as 'Flair Airlines', rather than '777 Partners' like the first few and the Bonza frames. As far as I'm aware it was ferried by Boeing but on Flair's request. Regardless, these aircraft are burning a hole in someone's pocket.

When Flair's own summer schedule (as of now) doesn't require as many aircraft as they're taking delivery of, surely taking the loss and paying whatever penalty is put on them is cheaper and better long-term, rather than paying to have it stored for an indefinite amount of time? Or alternatively, why not wet lease it out to someone else for the winter season? Who exactly is doing Flair's forward planning, and why haven't they been sacked?

There are no reported injuries. The Boeing 737 jet is still in the grass as Transportation Safety Board of Canada investigators are on their way. YKF remains closed.

Not a bad load factor it seems

70% load factor doesn't make money at a ULCC.....

Aresxerexade wrote:

Not a bad load factor it seems

You may have seen us say about 10 times in here that LF on most domestic sectors is decent, the discussion around LF has been the abysmal transborder operation.

Acey wrote:

Aresxerexade wrote:

Not a bad load factor it seems

You may have seen us say about 10 times in here that LF on most domestic sectors is decent, the discussion around LF has been the abysmal transborder operation.

Oh totally agree

Except the people that say the domestic l/f's are decent, (tell us about those yields though).....are largely the same people who claimed transborder was hitting it out of the ball park last April.

Every time we see independently verifiable data, it contradicts what is claimed here.

I'm from Missouri. Show me.

jimbo737 wrote:

Except the people that say the domestic l/f's are decent, (tell us about those yields though).....are largely the same people who claimed transborder was hitting it out of the ball park last April.

Every time we see independently verifiable data, it contradicts what is claimed here.

I'm from Missouri. Show me.

Words of wisdom. You can have high low factors but horrible yields. Absolutely

Note the fare these lucky folks paid for a 4,114 mile YVR-YKF round trip.

C$100.

YVR’s AIF is $25.

This likely explains why I hear there are at least 2 brand new C - Flair Max’s at Ascent in Tucson getting registration changes.

The flight from Vancouver was landing at the Kitchener-Waterloo airport when it overshot the runway and ended up in the grass.

"To me, it felt like we pulled right and then next thing you know, we're off the tarmac, in the field pretty much, bouncing around, smacking around," said Bradley.

"We probably went like 50 to 100 metres off the runway," he continued.

He said their plane tickets cost about $100 each, roundtrip, potentially saving them hundreds by going with the budget airline

jimbo737 wrote:

This likely explains why I hear there are at least 2 brand new C - Flair Max’s at Ascent in Tucson getting registration changes.

Ooo that's interesting, FLKO and FLKS been sat in TUS for the past week, both newly delivered frames that were sat in YYC a few weeks back, which Flair claimed was for ‘cabin modifications’.

YQB-YHZ and YQB-YEG added for S23. Wonder when we'll see YYZ and YVR added as well.

These two brand spanking new Flair Max’s are parked in the weeds in Tucson, destined for another operator in the UK.

Pics are circulating but are not easy to post on this site.

I guess those $9 fares to Toronto weren’t as lucrative as once thought.

Meanwhile, 801 Is finally in heavy C check.

jimbo737 wrote:

These two brand spanking new Flair Max’s are parked in the weeds in Tucson, destined for another operator in the UK.

Pics are circulating but are not easy to post on this site.

I guess those $9 fares to Toronto weren’t as lucrative as once thought.

Meanwhile, 801 Is finally in heavy C check.

Presumably TUI? Unaware of any other MAX operators on this side of the pond. Is it a short-term winter lease or permanent?

Juju2004 wrote:

YQB-YHZ and YQB-YEG added for S23. Wonder when we'll see YYZ and YVR added as well.

Interesting, two not bad unserved routes, YVR would be a good year-round addition. If only YQB wasn't such an expensive airport.

Juju2004 wrote:

YQB-YHZ and YQB-YEG added for S23. Wonder when we'll see YYZ and YVR added as well.

Both unserved markets. I suppose it's simple to stop in YQB on a YEG-YHZ flight and see if it works.

The flights don't operate on the same days so its not a through flight.

Air Canada used to operated YQB-YHZ right back to the Viscount days. Today, they route passengers through YUL. Maybe Flair can make it work. Even generating traffic with low low fares.

My database showing 7 Flair MAXes stored, 5 in Marana/MZJ and 2 in Tucson.

jimbo737 wrote:

These two brand spanking new Flair Max’s are parked in the weeds in Tucson, destined for another operator in the UK.

Pics are circulating but are not easy to post on this site.

I guess those $9 fares to Toronto weren’t as lucrative as once thought.

Meanwhile, 801 Is finally in heavy C check.

But the question is: will they come back for the full mega church on Easter?

I thought the general consensus was that they need to find a way to deal with excess capacity during the slow season. This looks like…that,

The successful new entrants I know of never had any need to store any aircraft at any time of the year.

Storing brand new us$300k a month assets in the desert is anything but a “low cost” strategy.

Even the most mathematically challenged can figure out what sort of sales are required at a 5% operating margin simply to cover the cost of this strategic blunder.

YHZ-YQB is interesting. First time it has been served in a long time and probably the first time with a jet unless Air Nova did the route with a BAe-146 at some point?

Hopefully it does well, it always struck me as odd that this city pairing couldn’t sustain even Dash 8 flight daily instead of having to route through YUL.

Also there are major military bases on both ends of that route that generate quite a lot of travel between them.

Juju2004 wrote:

YQB-YHZ and YQB-YEG added for S23. Wonder when we'll see YYZ and YVR added as well.

You can bet AC will add both with Rouge A319s shortly.

Thomaas wrote:

Juju2004 wrote:

YQB-YHZ and YQB-YEG added for S23. Wonder when we'll see YYZ and YVR added as well.

You can bet AC will add both with Rouge A319s shortly.

I’ll take that bet. It’s not planned. And, so far AC has not added any routes in response to Flair. That’s more of a Westjet/Swoop thing.

jimbo737 wrote:

The successful new entrants I know of never had any need to store any aircraft at any time of the year.

Storing brand new us$300k a month assets in the desert is anything but a “low cost” strategy.

Even the most mathematically challenged can figure out what sort of sales are required at a 5% operating margin simply to cover the cost of this strategic blunder.

Hey Jimbo...why don't you go run this airline....I have yet to see one semi-positive post about Flair from you.

yegbey01 wrote:

jimbo737 wrote:

The successful new entrants I know of never had any need to store any aircraft at any time of the year.

Storing brand new us$300k a month assets in the desert is anything but a “low cost” strategy.

Even the most mathematically challenged can figure out what sort of sales are required at a 5% operating margin simply to cover the cost of this strategic blunder.

Hey Jimbo...why don't you go run this airline....I have yet to see one semi-positive post about Flair from you.

There is nothing to be positive about. It's a non profitable business model. Always has been (lack of financial interest). Securing questionable financing (before the shell game) during a period where the majority of industry was grounded was a desperate one time only opportunity at scaling into profit while scavenging what little traffic was available (circle back to the non profitable business model). Greasy moves at best. Its no surprise to me why Lynx doesn't get equal hatred that Flair does by the rest of the industry. "Lack of GSE", "Cabin reconfigurations" Its all lies.

Fast forward to today and none of the metrics show that this resulted in sustainable profits. Nobody has ever been able to show otherwise. While my next point is not unique to Flair, they now are running aircraft 500 feet off the end of runways. It's becoming a bit of a show most of us have seen before.

wjv04 wrote:

There is nothing to be positive about. It's a non profitable business model. Always has been (lack of financial interest). Securing questionable financing (before the shell game) during a period where the majority of industry was grounded was a desperate one time only opportunity at scaling into profit while scavenging what little traffic was available (circle back to the non profitable business model). Greasy moves at best. Its no surprise to me why Lynx doesn't get equal hatred that Flair does by the rest of the industry. "Lack of GSE", "Cabin reconfigurations" Its all lies.

Fast forward to today and none of the metrics show that this resulted in sustainable profits. Nobody has ever been able to show otherwise. While my next point is not unique to Flair, they now are running aircraft 500 feet off the end of runways. It's becoming a bit of a show most of us have seen before.

Now, now, let’s be fair. There are some positives:

- Prices on routes they operate have gone down across airlines, so it’s clear, at the very least, that consumers aren’t avoiding them. That aside, better value for money = better for consumers.

- it’s clearly stimulated some kind of market in YKF. Probably the case for a fair number of domestic routes as well.

- I get the impression that F8’s aggressive approach forced the hand of all of the other ULCC paper tigers (the kind that have been periodically threatening to show up since 2014). In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if they forced Enerjet to finally move forward.

- If/when F8 folds, it’ll leave behind enough critical mass for Lynx. My own expectation is that the two will merge, but that’s besides the point. Even if whichever of them survives doubles their prices in the event of a merger or one’s failure, we’ll still end up with lower fares / better value for money than we would have without them showing up.

- And, of course, the entire F8 predatory pricing case seems to have forced WS to build a firewall between WS and WO, depriving the latter of all the reliability / IRROPs recovery advantages that it allegedly had. While that seems to have generated almost unending vitriol from that airline’s hacks, I expect it’ll serve Lynx and others well down the line.

Now, of course there’s plenty to ask questions about. I won’t even pretend to understand the financial shenanigans, but then again Canada’s airline industry is strewn with… let’s be polite and call them ethically- and morally-challenged executives and investors. Seems to be par from the course. A bit of a “let they who have not sinned cast the first stone” situation. Some of them even got dressed down in courts of law, and it’s still not clear if they think they did anything wrong.

That said, the invective directed at F8 in that sense has gone a little too far (it was outright xenophobic at one point). I don’t think I’ve seen a media campaign like that directed at any airline (right down to “cocaine trafficking”, like seriously). They’ve still managed to draw customers, which is its own kind of impressive.

In that sense, take the overshoot. Like, who cares? Literally every airline does it at some point or the other. Do we need to have another discussion about grooved and non grooved runways in wet Canada (what’s the scene at YKF?). It pales in comparison to hard landings and US TSB criticism of other Canadian airlines.

Maybe it’ll be curtains for F8 soon. I sincerely hope not. And I expect many here will be cheering its demise. But that’s the nature of taking risks, and there’s nothing to suggest the ULCC model in Canada will die with them. As a first mover, I think they deserve a little more credit for putting their money where their mouth is and actually doing something, however well or poorly it turns out.

wjv04 wrote:

yegbey01 wrote:

jimbo737 wrote:

The successful new entrants I know of never had any need to store any aircraft at any time of the year.

Storing brand new us$300k a month assets in the desert is anything but a “low cost” strategy.

Even the most mathematically challenged can figure out what sort of sales are required at a 5% operating margin simply to cover the cost of this strategic blunder.

Hey Jimbo...why don't you go run this airline....I have yet to see one semi-positive post about Flair from you.

There is nothing to be positive about. It's a non profitable business model. Always has been (lack of financial interest). Securing questionable financing (before the shell game) during a period where the majority of industry was grounded was a desperate one time only opportunity at scaling into profit while scavenging what little traffic was available (circle back to the non profitable business model). Greasy moves at best. Its no surprise to me why Lynx doesn't get equal hatred that Flair does by the rest of the industry. "Lack of GSE", "Cabin reconfigurations" Its all lies.

Fast forward to today and none of the metrics show that this resulted in sustainable profits. Nobody has ever been able to show otherwise. While my next point is not unique to Flair, they now are running aircraft 500 feet off the end of runways. It's becoming a bit of a show most of us have seen before.

Have you seen Flair’s financial statements? Without these facts, you should clarify that it’s your opinion the business model is not profitable.

What’s flabbergasting is that new and growing airlines mean more jobs for aviation professionals, lower fares and greater choices for consumers, and additional diversity in spotting for fans: all positives. Yet, there’s a very vocal group of pro-WS / anti-F8 posters that pile on with negativity. There are a few ex-F8 employees that would understandably have this position, but I’m. It sure why it’s widespread.

sxf24 wrote:

wjv04 wrote:

yegbey01 wrote:

Hey Jimbo...why don't you go run this airline....I have yet to see one semi-positive post about Flair from you.

There is nothing to be positive about. It's a non profitable business model. Always has been (lack of financial interest). Securing questionable financing (before the shell game) during a period where the majority of industry was grounded was a desperate one time only opportunity at scaling into profit while scavenging what little traffic was available (circle back to the non profitable business model). Greasy moves at best. Its no surprise to me why Lynx doesn't get equal hatred that Flair does by the rest of the industry. "Lack of GSE", "Cabin reconfigurations" Its all lies.

Fast forward to today and none of the metrics show that this resulted in sustainable profits. Nobody has ever been able to show otherwise. While my next point is not unique to Flair, they now are running aircraft 500 feet off the end of runways. It's becoming a bit of a show most of us have seen before.

Have you seen Flair’s financial statements? Without these facts, you should clarify that it’s your opinion the business model is not profitable.

What’s flabbergasting is that new and growing airlines mean more jobs for aviation professionals, lower fares and greater choices for consumers, and additional diversity in spotting for fans: all positives. Yet, there’s a very vocal group of pro-WS / anti-F8 posters that pile on with negativity. There are a few ex-F8 employees that would understandably have this position, but I’m. It sure why it’s widespread.

I should make it plain first that I'm British, writing this in my office in Scotland, and have absolutely no personal links to Canada whatsoever, let alone its airlines. My livelihood will not be affected in the slightest if Flair (or WestJet for that matter) goes belly up. There are several people whose livelihoods would be deeply damaged if the worst was to happen, and as a compassionate rational human being, I feel concern when looking at the current state and future growth plans of some startup outfits, and Flair is a good example of a company that gives me very cold feet. I can't speak for others, however I'm certainly not here seeking to be negative for the sake of it; I'm coming in from the point of view of a financial nerd, strategic analyst and investor who's done far too much reading and research into the Canadian passenger airline industry, and especially into previous LCC attempts. As much as consumer choice and job creation is fantastic, it means nothing in the long-term when the foundation of it is built on unstable ground. Yes, no one here (as far as I'm aware) has active access to Flair's books, however the data that does get piled in here from time to time tends to support the general consensus that Flair isn't an overly healthy company. It's incredibly difficult to put a positive spin, as much as some try, on dismally poor load factors and new aircraft being stored during peak season. Unless they've worked out some magical way to make a profit whilst flying half-empty planes on four hours flights with seats being sold at under $100, I can't see how Flair is possibly making money. That's my opinion, however it's based on facts and data that have been brought to light again and again by the likes of JetsGo, Greyhound Air, Skybus, WOW air, Norwegian, People Express, and the countless other now-former airlines that ran themselves into the ground following a worryingly similar strategy to Flair; explosive expansion just for the sake of it into highly competitive markets on the back of low fares and heavy reliance on external financing from a small number of sources, with no clear long-term plan of what happens once 'critical mass' has been reached. I've seen this film before, and I don't remember it having a happy ending.

No one in here is saying Flair is on the brink of insolvency, however I'm yet to see an argument that suggests it's profitable, hence most of us have drawn the conclusion that there's a strong chance it's not, and history unfortunately agrees.

Not xenophobic, just an observation of the propensity to constantly bring in “experts from out of town” who have no understanding whatsoever of how to build a sustainable airline that is viable 12 months a year in Canada.

If the plan is to park 7 high capital cost assets in the desert for half the year, it’s not much of a plan.

It’d take sales of US $180,000,000 with a 5% operating margin, (that assumes any fully allocated operating margin is even being generated these days), to generate the income to cover off the $9m paid in lease payments for 7 tails @ $300k a month for 6 months.

dr1980 wrote:

YHZ-YQB is interesting. First time it has been served in a long time and probably the first time with a jet unless Air Nova did the route with a BAe-146 at some point?

Hopefully it does well, it always struck me as odd that this city pairing couldn’t sustain even Dash 8 flight daily instead of having to route through YUL.

Back when YQB-YHZ existed on AC, (going from my obsessive paper timetable memorizing days until they disappeared in 2001/02, lol) the flight was on an Air Nova DH1. Oddly enough in one of the directions only the flight would stop in YQM. I can’t remember when it was cut, but it didn’t make it past 9/11, but I think it was cut even before that.

I think the lack of hate for Lynx is a) they’re following the original WS very conservative growth, b) they’re not being senseless like Jokelines, c) because of a), they’re losses are likely low and d) also because a lot of their staff are WS founders they’re cut more slack.

It’s obvious in the shoulder seasons (i.e. the months that aren’t between Victoria Day and Labour Day) Flair at present aren’t making any money. They question is can they ride this out for a couple more years to become/grow into being consistently profitable year-round. There’s a lot of doubters and justifiably so.

I’m not going to pretend to know F8’s fate, but the reality is that one needs to break eggs to make omlettes.

- did they take risks? Sure did. Some will work out. Some won’t. Some may well be fatal. They’re a disruptor in an incredibly badly managed market (arguably the least productive in the developed world); one might argue that they had to take a few risks to have a chance of succeeding.

- which brings us to “out-of-towners”. If you’re willing to take risks and disrupt, what’s the point of relying on “Canadian” expertise that’s grown up in a protected market and relies - to an unhealthy degree - on rent-seeking. I think it’s telling that one of Canada’s most celebrated airline CEOs thinks that dairy supply management is a good thing. You’re not going to get risk takers or disrupters from among these folk. The dire state of telecoms, dairy, airlines … all points to the need for more “out-of-towners” because, well, we’ve seen the high priced, low quality stuff the “locals” produced after decades in charge. The state of domestic Y service speaks for itself here. Granted that’s what probably what gives F8 and Lynx the greatest chance of surviving.

- Which brings us to this faux sympathy for the folk working at F8. Notwithstanding that there is a shortage of workers that should see these folk snapped up in a heartbeat (if they aren’t already grandfathered in through mergers), it beggars belief that anyone working for Canada’s two largest airlines can pretend to care about other airlines workers when their airlines have actively engaged in destructive, borderline illegal (and sometimes outright illegal) activities aimed at putting those very employees out of work. We’re in our second major predatory pricing case in 2 decades.

Anybody who’s lived/studied/worked outside Canada knows these products at these prices are global outliers in a bad way. But the flip side is that we’re importing more “out-of-towners” by the day, so change is inevitable. F8 may well be the first stirring of that. Hopefully this ULCC era that it kickstarted can bring value-for-money comparable to the rest of the developed world, even if F8 doesn’t survive to take credit.

TexasAirCorp wrote:

sxf24 wrote:

wjv04 wrote:

There is nothing to be positive about. It's a non profitable business model. Always has been (lack of financial interest). Securing questionable financing (before the shell game) during a period where the majority of industry was grounded was a desperate one time only opportunity at scaling into profit while scavenging what little traffic was available (circle back to the non profitable business model). Greasy moves at best. Its no surprise to me why Lynx doesn't get equal hatred that Flair does by the rest of the industry. "Lack of GSE", "Cabin reconfigurations" Its all lies.

Fast forward to today and none of the metrics show that this resulted in sustainable profits. Nobody has ever been able to show otherwise. While my next point is not unique to Flair, they now are running aircraft 500 feet off the end of runways. It's becoming a bit of a show most of us have seen before.

Have you seen Flair’s financial statements? Without these facts, you should clarify that it’s your opinion the business model is not profitable.

What’s flabbergasting is that new and growing airlines mean more jobs for aviation professionals, lower fares and greater choices for consumers, and additional diversity in spotting for fans: all positives. Yet, there’s a very vocal group of pro-WS / anti-F8 posters that pile on with negativity. There are a few ex-F8 employees that would understandably have this position, but I’m. It sure why it’s widespread.

I should make it plain first that I'm British, writing this in my office in Scotland, and have absolutely no personal links to Canada whatsoever, let alone its airlines. My livelihood will not be affected in the slightest if Flair (or WestJet for that matter) goes belly up. There are several people whose livelihoods would be deeply damaged if the worst was to happen, and as a compassionate rational human being, I feel concern when looking at the current state and future growth plans of some startup outfits, and Flair is a good example of a company that gives me very cold feet. I can't speak for others, however I'm certainly not here seeking to be negative for the sake of it; I'm coming in from the point of view of a financial nerd, strategic analyst and investor who's done far too much reading and research into the Canadian passenger airline industry, and especially into previous LCC attempts. As much as consumer choice and job creation is fantastic, it means nothing in the long-term when the foundation of it is built on unstable ground. Yes, no one here (as far as I'm aware) has active access to Flair's books, however the data that does get piled in here from time to time tends to support the general consensus that Flair isn't an overly healthy company. It's incredibly difficult to put a positive spin, as much as some try, on dismally poor load factors and new aircraft being stored during peak season. Unless they've worked out some magical way to make a profit whilst flying half-empty planes on four hours flights with seats being sold at under $100, I can't see how Flair is possibly making money. That's my opinion, however it's based on facts and data that have been brought to light again and again by the likes of JetsGo, Greyhound Air, Skybus, WOW air, Norwegian, People Express, and the countless other now-former airlines that ran themselves into the ground following a worryingly similar strategy to Flair; explosive expansion just for the sake of it into highly competitive markets on the back of low fares and heavy reliance on external financing from a small number of sources, with no clear long-term plan of what happens once 'critical mass' has been reached. I've seen this film before, and I don't remember it having a happy ending.

No one in here is saying Flair is on the brink of insolvency, however I'm yet to see an argument that suggests it's profitable, hence most of us have drawn the conclusion that there's a strong chance it's not, and history unfortunately agrees.

It’s certainly valid to draw an opinion based on observances and historical patterns. It is not appropriate for posters to try and position their opinions as facts, e.g. F8 is not profitable.

Wonder what the loads look like on the inaugural TUS flights, especially from YMM.

Juju2004 wrote:

Wonder what the loads look like on the inaugural TUS flights, especially from YMM.

Inaugural YMM-TUS flight is just under half full. Better than I was expecting to be fair (may possibly be some media/staff onboard), but at $125 each max, again can't see how they're making money on that unless the incentives are huge. Forward bookings look similar, note they've hiked up fares across the board however that doesn't seem to be because they're selling seats.

Whilst I'm having a look at loads, YUL-YVR tonight has 70 pax, YXX-YYC has 44, YEG-YXX has 38, YXX-YEG has 36, YVR-YYZ has 35, YVR-YYC has 24, and YYC-YVR has only 16. Make of that what you will.

Where are you getting that info?

Juju2004 wrote:

Where are you getting that info?

That's the checked-in loads showing on Flair's reservation system taken as close to the time it closes as possible. Might be one or two off, but I doubt you're gonna get 100 people turning up at check in 10 minutes before it closes, especially on an airline that charges $25 for airport check in

If you mean seatmaps that's not accurate at all

I took a break for a bit and come back to see the same arguments being recycled again and again. Interesting that many commenters don't live here and I wonder if they've actually ever taken a F8 flight. Conclusion is they're doing lots right, a few things wrong and are shaking things up a bit. See how they do and wish them well. For actual network news I'm happy to see the conservative start in YQB and I think they'll do well in that market because it is underserved by a ULCC.