Flair Summer Expansion

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tbaylx
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Flair Summer Expansion

Post by tbaylx »

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digits_
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Re: Flair Summer Expansion

Post by digits_ »

Great that they have expansion plans. But uhm... who will be flying this summer :? :?:
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Re: Flair Summer Expansion

Post by atpilot »

digits_ wrote: Wed Feb 10, 2021 7:33 am
Great that they have expansion plans. But uhm... who will be flying this summer :? :?:
Let's try to be optimistic. This is really good news.
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montado
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Re: Flair Summer Expansion

Post by montado »

Is it cheaper to fly confirmed on flair this summer than it is to commute on standby passes?
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lownslow
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Re: Flair Summer Expansion

Post by lownslow »

Maybe they’re just growing to be marketable as wet lease to a country that has their poop in a group.
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palebird
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Re: Flair Summer Expansion

Post by palebird »

It is great that someone in the industry is optimistic. But.... Flair must have really deep pockets because there is no money to be made right now. Who knows what the future holds.
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McKinley
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Re: Flair Summer Expansion

Post by McKinley »

Ah yes, the race to the bottom accelerates! Thank you flair.

I did a peruse of the comments section ... “ AC/ WJ have abandoned us and don’t care” .... WTF. If this is the general opinion out there we’re f’d. ( except flair)

Oh! Here’s another “ bring on the cheep flights”, “Faster! Cheaper = feee market” ( yes, I know how to spell “ cheap.” 🤮


How the @#$! do these guys make money? How do their pilots and or staff make money?
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Re: Flair Summer Expansion

Post by GRK2 »

McKinley wrote: Wed Feb 10, 2021 4:36 pm Ah yes, the race to the bottom accelerates! Thank you flair.

I did a peruse of the comments section ... “ AC/ WJ have abandoned us and don’t care” .... WTF. If this is the general opinion out there we’re f’d. ( except flair)

Oh! Here’s another “ bring on the cheep flights”, “Faster! Cheaper = feee market” ( yes, I know how to spell “ cheap.” 🤮


How the @#$! do these guys make money? How do their pilots and or staff make money?
What's the matter Honeybunch? Didn't get an invite? Too bad so sad. I hear that they had over 1000 applications and the average experience level was in the tens of thousands of hours region. The pay rates can't be too bad if that number applied in less than a week.How is that a race to the bottom?
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Yycjetdriver
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Re: Flair Summer Expansion

Post by Yycjetdriver »

:o
GRK2 wrote: Wed Feb 10, 2021 8:08 pm
McKinley wrote: Wed Feb 10, 2021 4:36 pm Ah yes, the race to the bottom accelerates! Thank you flair.

I did a peruse of the comments section ... “ AC/ WJ have abandoned us and don’t care” .... WTF. If this is the general opinion out there we’re f’d. ( except flair)

Oh! Here’s another “ bring on the cheep flights”, “Faster! Cheaper = feee market” ( yes, I know how to spell “ cheap.” 🤮


How the @#$! do these guys make money? How do their pilots and or staff make money?
The pay rates can't be too bad if that number applied in less than a week.How is that a race to the bottom?
Ummm I don’t think their pay rates have anything to do with the amount of applicants, if you haven’t noticed we’re in a pandemic and there’s a lot of furloughed pilots. (I have no idea nor do I care what their pay rates are).
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McKinley
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Re: Flair Summer Expansion

Post by McKinley »

GRK2 wrote: Wed Feb 10, 2021 8:08 pm
McKinley wrote: Wed Feb 10, 2021 4:36 pm Ah yes, the race to the bottom accelerates! Thank you flair.

I did a peruse of the comments section ... “ AC/ WJ have abandoned us and don’t care” .... WTF. If this is the general opinion out there we’re f’d. ( except flair)

Oh! Here’s another “ bring on the cheep flights”, “Faster! Cheaper = feee market” ( yes, I know how to spell “ cheap.” 🤮


How the @#$! do these guys make money? How do their pilots and or staff make money?
What's the matter Honeybunch? Didn't get an invite? Too bad so sad. I hear that they had over 1000 applications and the average experience level was in the tens of thousands of hours region. The pay rates can't be too bad if that number applied in less than a week.How is that a race to the bottom?

I never applied ..

It was more of a rhetorical question ... $50 airfares ? How does one make ends meet?

I’ll admit I could way more tactful on how I brought that up- so .. I’ll apologize for my previous post...

I hope the people who work there are generally happy and treated well. I see what compensation is offered at the majors /regionals with higher fares ...and I don’t get it. To me, the math does not add up. $50 fares..?

If this company pays their employees fairly, provides benefits, pensions and days off equal to or greater than other carriers .. good on em! I’ll eat my words right here and now.

However, I can’t even drive those distances for those prices ...?!?! I’m more than happy to hear about how the business model works and become more educated.

It’s good others are being hired as well in this economy. I just hope it’s not at the expense of this carrier “ swooping in” - no pun intended and undercutting other companies.

I do dislike the “faster, cheaper” modern model .. I’ll pay a bit extra for my food etc. my view is that “ Cheap” is not always “ Cheap”

Oh, as for employment .. it’s an employers market right now. Hell, there’s competition for volunteering as a pilot or sweeping the hangar floor right now .. so am I surprised there were 1000’s of applicants ? No.

Best of luck out there.
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Re: Flair Summer Expansion

Post by ayseven »

The old supply and demand... Is it good for workers? Is it good just to be a worker?

Aviation has always been precarious, and pilots are always a dime a dozen. Sorry, but that is just the way it has always been. People always have to ask themselves whether they want a decent stable life with a good salary, or ride the thrills and spills of this business. Flair knows damned well that there are lots of people in the latter category.

Big business always has things going on that the average person never has any idea about: tax dodges, I mean loopholes, investor schemes, etc etc. Can a $50 flight be justified? I don't know, and neither does anybody else, except Flair. The idea is to make money, but how that is done, is always quite "interesting". Nevermind, it is still pretty good news, I think.
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tbaylx
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Re: Flair Summer Expansion

Post by tbaylx »

McKinley wrote: Wed Feb 10, 2021 9:03 pm
GRK2 wrote: Wed Feb 10, 2021 8:08 pm
McKinley wrote: Wed Feb 10, 2021 4:36 pm Ah yes, the race to the bottom accelerates! Thank you flair.

I did a peruse of the comments section ... “ AC/ WJ have abandoned us and don’t care” .... WTF. If this is the general opinion out there we’re f’d. ( except flair)

Oh! Here’s another “ bring on the cheep flights”, “Faster! Cheaper = feee market” ( yes, I know how to spell “ cheap.” 🤮


How the @#$! do these guys make money? How do their pilots and or staff make money?
What's the matter Honeybunch? Didn't get an invite? Too bad so sad. I hear that they had over 1000 applications and the average experience level was in the tens of thousands of hours region. The pay rates can't be too bad if that number applied in less than a week.How is that a race to the bottom?

I never applied ..

It was more of a rhetorical question ... $50 airfares ? How does one make ends meet?

I’ll admit I could way more tactful on how I brought that up- so .. I’ll apologize for my previous post...

I hope the people who work there are generally happy and treated well. I see what compensation is offered at the majors /regionals with higher fares ...and I don’t get it. To me, the math does not add up. $50 fares..?

If this company pays their employees fairly, provides benefits, pensions and days off equal to or greater than other carriers .. good on em! I’ll eat my words right here and now.

However, I can’t even drive those distances for those prices ...?!?! I’m more than happy to hear about how the business model works and become more educated.

It’s good others are being hired as well in this economy. I just hope it’s not at the expense of this carrier “ swooping in” - no pun intended and undercutting other companies.

I do dislike the “faster, cheaper” modern model .. I’ll pay a bit extra for my food etc. my view is that “ Cheap” is not always “ Cheap”

Oh, as for employment .. it’s an employers market right now. Hell, there’s competition for volunteering as a pilot or sweeping the hangar floor right now .. so am I surprised there were 1000’s of applicants ? No.

Best of luck out there.
A ULCC model is not really a secret, there's plenty of good reading on the subject if you're interested. Executing it correctly is the trick.

Done correctly you have a good product and positive experience for your passengers, decent pay and conditions for your employees and still make a yield on a $50 ticket. They absolutely will undercut legacy carriers, yet still make a profit.

No one has managed to do it in Canada yet, though no one has ever really tried. Either they built an low cost airline within an airline, or they had the wrong aircraft/C level execs, bad timing, labor issues or some combination of the above. I'd say the original Westjet when they started up was as close as it got and they were very successful for quite some time even with older 737-200's
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Re: Flair Summer Expansion

Post by GRK2 »

McKinley wrote: Wed Feb 10, 2021 9:03 pm
GRK2 wrote: Wed Feb 10, 2021 8:08 pm
McKinley wrote: Wed Feb 10, 2021 4:36 pm Ah yes, the race to the bottom accelerates! Thank you flair.

I did a peruse of the comments section ... “ AC/ WJ have abandoned us and don’t care” .... WTF. If this is the general opinion out there we’re f’d. ( except flair)

Oh! Here’s another “ bring on the cheep flights”, “Faster! Cheaper = feee market” ( yes, I know how to spell “ cheap.” 🤮


How the @#$! do these guys make money? How do their pilots and or staff make money?
What's the matter Honeybunch? Didn't get an invite? Too bad so sad. I hear that they had over 1000 applications and the average experience level was in the tens of thousands of hours region. The pay rates can't be too bad if that number applied in less than a week.How is that a race to the bottom?

I never applied ..

It was more of a rhetorical question ... $50 airfares ? How does one make ends meet?

I’ll admit I could way more tactful on how I brought that up- so .. I’ll apologize for my previous post...

I hope the people who work there are generally happy and treated well. I see what compensation is offered at the majors /regionals with higher fares ...and I don’t get it. To me, the math does not add up. $50 fares..?

If this company pays their employees fairly, provides benefits, pensions and days off equal to or greater than other carriers .. good on em! I’ll eat my words right here and now.

However, I can’t even drive those distances for those prices ...?!?! I’m more than happy to hear about how the business model works and become more educated.

It’s good others are being hired as well in this economy. I just hope it’s not at the expense of this carrier “ swooping in” - no pun intended and undercutting other companies.

I do dislike the “faster, cheaper” modern model .. I’ll pay a bit extra for my food etc. my view is that “ Cheap” is not always “ Cheap”

Oh, as for employment .. it’s an employers market right now. Hell, there’s competition for volunteering as a pilot or sweeping the hangar floor right now .. so am I surprised there were 1000’s of applicants ? No.

Best of luck out there.
Ok, I was out of line with the "Honeybunch" comment, there was really no need and it was quite unprofessional. I apologise. As another poster has said it's really worth (and quite easy to find) reading up on ULCC business plans. I would suggest it's a good read. So many "expert" posters on this crazy site haven't bothered to even try to understand the business of airlines and aviation (it's so easily evident by the vitriol spewed in most threads) that it drives the more sober posters away. Whenever I get asked about how to survive in this industry the one thing I emphasize is to try and keep up with the "business" of flying, learn your craft and strive to be better at it every day. It doesn't always work for some, but I'm happy with how it did for me.
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Re: Flair Summer Expansion

Post by Cappo1 »

So with flair coming in to YKF, how will this affect Pivots planned scheduled flying out of there ? Seems to me the airport will be over saturated.
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Re: Flair Summer Expansion

Post by GRK2 »

Cappo1 wrote: Thu Feb 11, 2021 3:55 pm So with flair coming in to YKF, how will this affect Pivots planned scheduled flying out of there ? Seems to me the airport will be over saturated.
Last I looked (yesterday) Pivot showed one (1) CRJ100 on their OAC and were offering it up for charter flights. Not sure of your definition of over saturation but it looks to me that there's likely room for both? Are they still planning on scheduled operations?
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Re: Flair Summer Expansion

Post by CaptainHaddock »

I don’t think Flair will be heading into a vacuum, this summer AC and WestJet will head back there (along with Swoop), so it will be an orgy of losses and over capacity is my guess.
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Re: Flair Summer Expansion

Post by TheStig »

They will be in Kitchener, the Regional government is covering thousands in fees exclusively for Flair on all its routes other than to YYC which WJ serves. Clever move by Flair to ensure the larger incumbents can't pop into a small market like YKF and use scorched earth pricing. We'll see if it works out better than Westjets central Canadian hub in YHM 2 decades ago.
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Re: Flair Summer Expansion

Post by flying4dollars »

McKinley wrote: Wed Feb 10, 2021 9:03 pm
I never applied ..

It was more of a rhetorical question ... $50 airfares ? How does one make ends meet?

I’ll admit I could way more tactful on how I brought that up- so .. I’ll apologize for my previous post...

I hope the people who work there are generally happy and treated well. I see what compensation is offered at the majors /regionals with higher fares ...and I don’t get it. To me, the math does not add up. $50 fares..?

If this company pays their employees fairly, provides benefits, pensions and days off equal to or greater than other carriers .. good on em! I’ll eat my words right here and now.

However, I can’t even drive those distances for those prices ...?!?! I’m more than happy to hear about how the business model works and become more educated.

It’s good others are being hired as well in this economy. I just hope it’s not at the expense of this carrier “ swooping in” - no pun intended and undercutting other companies.

I do dislike the “faster, cheaper” modern model .. I’ll pay a bit extra for my food etc. my view is that “ Cheap” is not always “ Cheap”

Oh, as for employment .. it’s an employers market right now. Hell, there’s competition for volunteering as a pilot or sweeping the hangar floor right now .. so am I surprised there were 1000’s of applicants ? No.

Best of luck out there.

$50 fares one way seems very low indeed. Remember though, it works in other countries if done correctly for a reason. One other thing to keep in mind is; Because this is an expansion, attraction will be key. Offer low fares across the board with introductory seat sales to fill seats and spread word of mouth. Once that has been accomplished, the $50 seat sales will still be there, but not for all 189 seats. It may well be for a fraction of the seats if you stay on top of it and book correctly. I think that's part of how it works. The other thing to remember is that not everyone will simply show up with only their $50 airfares. People will check bags, people will want their boarding passes printed, people will want seat selection and buy on board etc. This is where a $50 one way can easily turn into $100, and still, that's a bargain when you look at the alternatives. This is how the ULCC model essentially works. They don't incur the same operating costs like legacy carriers.

As for the pilots wages, yeah it's ok. Not great, but not terrible. I think the group does ok and are a happy bunch. Definitely not bottom feeding by any means like many think :roll:
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Re: Flair Summer Expansion

Post by Zaibatsu »

I wonder how many Air Canada pilots who never got off flat pay thought the same thing in 2019. I wonder how many who haven’t flown in a year still think so?
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Re: Flair Summer Expansion

Post by flying4dollars »

Zaibatsu wrote: Mon Feb 15, 2021 10:59 am I wonder how many Air Canada pilots who never got off flat pay thought the same thing in 2019. I wonder how many who haven’t flown in a year still think so?
Thought the same thing about what?
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Re: Flair Summer Expansion

Post by Big Pistons Forever »

Personally I think the future of the ULCC market is entirely dependent on what Westjet does with SWOOP. If they go all in then Flair and anybody else in the ULCC market is toast. If Westjet keeps treating SWOOP as a union busting sideshow like they have to date, then I think Flair has a real chance with a first mover advantage and no legacy cost base.

I think Flair has made the strategic decision that they are in a go big or go home situation
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Re: Flair Summer Expansion

Post by palebird »

The ULCC secret indeed. It involves a lot of fairy dust. And throwing lots of dead ducks after other dead ducks. But very entertaining.
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Re: Flair Summer Expansion

Post by rooster »

palebird wrote: Mon Feb 15, 2021 11:47 am The ULCC secret indeed. It involves a lot of fairy dust. And throwing lots of dead ducks after other dead ducks. But very entertaining.
Tell that to the Ryanair's, Air Asia's, Spirit's, Wizz's etc of the world that. Could you at least in all your wisdom tell me how a ULCC operator can get money to acquire 13+ brand new MAX jets after being in the game for 4 years without doing something right? Clearly whatever Flair is doing, is working. I remember hearing everyone say from day one that they wouldn't last a year, myself included (actually I gave it an optimistic 2). I don't mind eating my words if it means we have more cost effective choices in Canada. Especially if it means giving jobs to laid off pilots and flight attendants.
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Re: Flair Summer Expansion

Post by GRK2 »

Big Pistons Forever wrote: Mon Feb 15, 2021 11:29 am Personally I think the future of the ULCC market is entirely dependent on what Westjet does with SWOOP. If they go all in then Flair and anybody else in the ULCC market is toast. If Westjet keeps treating SWOOP as a union busting sideshow like they have to date, then I think Flair has a real chance with a first mover advantage and no legacy cost base.

I think Flair has made the strategic decision that they are in a go big or go home situation
Serious question. Swoop has 9 tail numbers, Flair will have 4 more than that by year end and almost double that number by year end 2022. You say that the ULCC market is dependent on what WS does with SWOOP. "All in" means what for SWOOP? A match Flair fare for fare, departure for departure or charge less for that fare kind of all in? If that's the case then both ventures likely fail. The competition will kill them both. Is it your opinion that the deepest pockets wins? If WS (via SWOOP) floods the market to beat Flair at the ULCC game what's to prevent WS from shrinking SWOOP once that's done? Then Canada is back to square one. Poor options for affordable travel.

The work force at WS are an unhappy lot and will push back to force changes (like the recall to SWOOP deal they have now) No such problem at Flair, they seem to be quite motivated. I hope it works out well for them.
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Re: Flair Summer Expansion

Post by DHC-1 Jockey »

GRK2 wrote: Mon Feb 15, 2021 7:01 pm A match Flair fare for fare, departure for departure or charge less for that fare kind of all in?
I believe with the recent press release stating that Flair will be operating out of YKF, the airport agreed into an exclusivity agreement with Flair (WS will still have one flight to YYC). So, I don't think Swoop will "Swoop" in and try to match Flair. They'll have to stick to YHM and YYZ.
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