So much for growth

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NovaBoy
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Re: So much for growth

Post by NovaBoy »

All the airlines are struggling to find not just competent employees, but employees in general. Great to have a full flight schedule with people wanting to travel, but it all goes to cr@p when they don’t have people to unload the baggage, or fly the airplanes, etc.

This is a people problem that the airlines do not want to pay for.
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CanadianPlane2020
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Re: So much for growth

Post by CanadianPlane2020 »

I know YYC is opening as a base in April; any plans of YXE or YWG bases anytime soon?
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Last edited by CanadianPlane2020 on Fri Jan 06, 2023 6:00 am, edited 1 time in total.
flyinhigh
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Re: So much for growth

Post by flyinhigh »

daedalusx wrote: Tue Jan 03, 2023 1:27 pm
pacman007 wrote: Tue Jan 03, 2023 12:52 pm I agree, expansion is slowing rapidly. Tbaylx probably does not have any say in fleet size or aircraft acquisition.
His job is to recruit. Just saying
Dude they're literally running 2 GS per month this Winter/Spring ...
So is PASCO, but that is not due to fleet expansion.

Flair is bleeding pilots as fast as they hire them, hence the South African recruitment drive which will undoubtedly fail (what could go wrong putting pilots in the seats that have not saw snow before)..
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safetyfirst123
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Re: So much for growth

Post by safetyfirst123 »

tbaylx wrote: Sat Dec 31, 2022 11:04 am
safetyfirst123 wrote: Sat Dec 31, 2022 10:27 am So is this Globe and Mail story false? Like when they wrote an article saying that Sunwing was for sale, which was strongly denied by Sunwing, but later proved to be true?
777 Partners has orders for up to 134 B737's with more coming, including the 737-8-200. They sell most of them to a variety of leasing companies who then lease them to Flair, Bonza, and other airlines. 777 Partners has sold most of the aircraft it has received and this is not a new development, nor will it affect Flair's growth plans. To suggest otherwise shows a lack of understanding on how Flair is managing its fleet expansion.

The article, which was only partially quoted by the OP, also states our 2023 fleet plans. The article is factual, however, the OP only partially quoted it and purposefully posted an alarmist topic in order to provide a half-story that was driven by his agenda.

"Discount carrier Flair Airlines has boosted its planned summer seat offerings and flights by more than 40 per cent over 2022. The Edmonton-based airline’s fleets consists of 19 Boeing 737s, capacity that falls short of the planned schedule, but will add leased planes in the months to come, said Stephen Jones, chief executive officer of Flair.

“Flair Airlines is regularly taking delivery of aircraft, and anticipate we’ll have 27 aircraft by the summer of 2023, at different bases across Canada,” he said.
Sunwing is taking on three additional MAX's this spring. I heard these are some of the parked Flair aircraft?
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tbaylx
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Re: So much for growth

Post by tbaylx »

flyinhigh wrote: Fri Jan 06, 2023 6:06 am
daedalusx wrote: Tue Jan 03, 2023 1:27 pm
pacman007 wrote: Tue Jan 03, 2023 12:52 pm I agree, expansion is slowing rapidly. Tbaylx probably does not have any say in fleet size or aircraft acquisition.
His job is to recruit. Just saying
Dude they're literally running 2 GS per month this Winter/Spring ...
So is PASCO, but that is not due to fleet expansion.

Flair is bleeding pilots as fast as they hire them, hence the South African recruitment drive which will undoubtedly fail (what could go wrong putting pilots in the seats that have not saw snow before)..
We aren't though. Our average resignation rate is about 4 pilots per month, mostly to AC. We're hiring 30-40/month for the expansion.

Any pilot, regardless of their experience, is thoroughly trained on our operations prior to being released. That includes pilots who have never flown a jet before and yet they seem to manage okay once released. I have no doubt that a 15 000 hour + experienced 737 pilot who managed to operate throughout Africa would manage winter operations just fine once properly trained.
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Last edited by tbaylx on Thu Jan 26, 2023 7:30 am, edited 2 times in total.
tbaylx
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Re: So much for growth

Post by tbaylx »

CanadianPlane2020 wrote: Fri Jan 06, 2023 3:59 am I know YYC is opening as a base in April; any plans of YXE or YWG bases anytime soon?
YXE has never been under consideration, so highly unlikely.

We have considered YWG but it's down the list after YUL and YHZ. Almost certainly not before 2025 at the earliest.
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Ecpilot
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Re: So much for growth

Post by Ecpilot »

tbaylx wrote: Thu Jan 26, 2023 7:19 am
CanadianPlane2020 wrote: Fri Jan 06, 2023 3:59 am I know YYC is opening as a base in April; any plans of YXE or YWG bases anytime soon?
YXE has never been under consideration, so highly unlikely.

We have considered YWG but it's down the list after YUL and YHZ. Almost certainly not before 2025 at the earliest.
Any idea of the time line for YUL & YHZ base’s to open?
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tbaylx
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Re: So much for growth

Post by tbaylx »

Ecpilot wrote: Thu Jan 26, 2023 6:30 pm
tbaylx wrote: Thu Jan 26, 2023 7:19 am
CanadianPlane2020 wrote: Fri Jan 06, 2023 3:59 am I know YYC is opening as a base in April; any plans of YXE or YWG bases anytime soon?
YXE has never been under consideration, so highly unlikely.

We have considered YWG but it's down the list after YUL and YHZ. Almost certainly not before 2025 at the earliest.
Any idea of the time line for YUL & YHZ base’s to open?
We've been waiting for YUL for quite some time. If I had to guess it would be 2024 for at least one of those, likely YUL first.
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Aviator12
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Re: So much for growth

Post by Aviator12 »

Looks like 2 machines headed to Austria. They were only registered to Flair for basically 1 month. Could be the ones sitting around Flair does not need right now as discussed earlier in this topic.


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SPR
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Re: So much for growth

Post by SPR »

They've actually lost seven since I created this thread, plus another one in December that's unaffiliated with 777 Partners. I really fail to see what their strategy was when they painted all those tails in Flair's livery, configured them with Flair's seating plan, and had Flair register them on their AOC (how did they get Flair to do that for them if they're not the controlling shareholder? :smt017) even though, as tbaylx claims, they never intended for Flair to operate those aircraft. Why would they bother spending all that money if the intention wasn't for Flair to ever use them? Why would they have Flair register them in December, only to have those registrations cancelled in January and February, if they just wanted to lease them on to third parties? Not a single aircraft that's been added to the fleet since October has stayed.

Edit: After a bit more digging, it looks like five of the exported aircraft went to the Bank of Utah, which is itself leasing them out. So either Flair took delivery of eight aircraft it could never utilize, or 777 Partners has a terrible business model in which they buy, paint, and configure aircraft, and then immediately sell them to competing lessors.

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GRK2
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Re: So much for growth

Post by GRK2 »

I'm curious, why do you even care?
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safetyfirst123
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Re: So much for growth

Post by safetyfirst123 »

Flair's business model is likely predicated on cheap leases from 777 Partners, but now that 777 Partners can lease those Max's out elsewhere for far more money, or they can flip those airplanes on the market for a profit, it raises the question on how viable the Flair model is going forward. Hopefully Flair's business model is sustainable at normal market rates for Max leases. If that's the case, I highly doubt it will be 50 aircraft.

We also know that not every airline will be able to meet their growth objectives in the coming years, either due to unrealistic growth forecasts or inability to crew their airplanes. As always, there will be winners and losers, and pilots need to take that into account when choosing where they work.
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tbaylx
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Re: So much for growth

Post by tbaylx »

safetyfirst123 wrote: Sat Feb 18, 2023 7:47 am Flair's business model is likely predicated on cheap leases from 777 Partners, but now that 777 Partners can lease those Max's out elsewhere for far more money, or they can flip those airplanes on the market for a profit, it raises the question on how viable the Flair model is going forward. Hopefully Flair's business model is sustainable at normal market rates for Max leases. If that's the case, I highly doubt it will be 50 aircraft.

We also know that not every airline will be able to meet their growth objectives in the coming years, either due to unrealistic growth forecasts or inability to crew their airplanes. As always, there will be winners and losers, and pilots need to take that into account when choosing where they work.
Few of our aircraft are leased direct from 777 Partners. Most are at market rates from a variety of lessors, and all growth plans are based on that.
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safetyfirst123
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Re: So much for growth

Post by safetyfirst123 »

[quote=tbaylx
Few of our aircraft are leased direct from 777 Partners. Most are at market rates from a variety of lessors, and all growth plans are based on that.
[/quote]

Thanks, I hope that's the case! Too many good people at Flair and competition is healthy for all.
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ThinMargins
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Re: So much for growth

Post by ThinMargins »

SPR wrote: Fri Feb 17, 2023 1:27 pm They've actually lost seven since I created this thread, plus another one in December that's unaffiliated with 777 Partners. I really fail to see what their strategy was when they painted all those tails in Flair's livery, configured them with Flair's seating plan, and had Flair register them on their AOC (how did they get Flair to do that for them if they're not the controlling shareholder? :smt017) even though, as tbaylx claims, they never intended for Flair to operate those aircraft. Why would they bother spending all that money if the intention wasn't for Flair to ever use them? Why would they have Flair register them in December, only to have those registrations cancelled in January and February, if they just wanted to lease them on to third parties? Not a single aircraft that's been added to the fleet since October has stayed.

Edit: After a bit more digging, it looks like five of the exported aircraft went to the Bank of Utah, which is itself leasing them out. So either Flair took delivery of eight aircraft it could never utilize, or 777 Partners has a terrible business model in which they buy, paint, and configure aircraft, and then immediately sell them to competing lessors.

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Word in the leasing community is that Flair isn’t paying rent on its leases and hasn’t been paying for many months now. Lessors are moving towards repossessing aircraft. Should be an interesting few weeks in Canadian aviation.

It would be interesting to see someone ask Stephen Jones or someone else at Flair if they are paying their lessors. I would like to see them spin a response to that. Their stock “we are a private company, we don’t comment on our financials” answer isn’t going to cut it. I bet if someone asked other private airlines, i.e. Porter, WestJet or Sunwing whether they are paying their leases they would get a straightforward response.

Most of the leases are not with 777 Partners btw.
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seriousflyer
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Re: So much for growth

Post by seriousflyer »

What is happening here ? Any truth here or just all rumour mill churning out terrible gossip?
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GRK2
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Re: So much for growth

Post by GRK2 »

I call BS...unless this guy who claims to be in the know about "the leasing community" has truthful information he can post here, it's just one person making shyte up. He has some weird interest in seeing Flair fail and posts nothing but unsubstantiated rumours with some sort of wish to see the airline fail. I shudder to use the term, but it's "Fake News" unless he cares to show facts. It smells to high hell of a senior WS manager posting false information to keep Flair from "Eating Westjet's Breakfast."
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ThinMargins
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Re: So much for growth

Post by ThinMargins »

GRK2, here are specifics. This highlighted aircraft is just one example of the many aircraft that Flair is defaulting on. It is not productive to argue with each other and hurl accusations.

It would be great if those supposedly on the side of pilots (looking at tbalyx) can tell us that this is not true and can comfort us all that Flair has not defaulted on this lease. It is a yes or no question. They will not answer.

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The summer schedule demands 30% fleet growth. Those tails need to be leased, imported and inducted by now if they are going to be flown the summer.

As people like SPR have shown here, aircraft are actually going away from the fleet. People like him are attacked for telling the truth. We should get direct answers from management. Starting with whether Flair is in default on C-FLKJ.
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Tbayer2021
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Re: So much for growth

Post by Tbayer2021 »

ThinMargins wrote: Wed Feb 22, 2023 7:59 am GRK2, here are specifics. This highlighted aircraft is just one example of the many aircraft that Flair is defaulting on. It is not productive to argue with each other and hurl accusations.

It would be great if those supposedly on the side of pilots (looking at tbalyx) can tell us that this is not true and can comfort us all that Flair has not defaulted on this lease. It is a yes or no question. They will not answer.

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The summer schedule demands 30% fleet growth. Those tails need to be leased, imported and inducted by now if they are going to be flown the summer.

As people like SPR have shown here, aircraft are actually going away from the fleet. People like him are attacked for telling the truth. We should get direct answers from management. Starting with whether Flair is in default on C-FLKJ.
OK, I take everything tbalyx says with the largest grain of salt i can. But highlighting an aircraft on a list of other aircraft isn't proof of anything, let alone the company defaulting on payments.
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tbaylx
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Re: So much for growth

Post by tbaylx »

The thing about lessors is when you stop paying them they take their aircraft back and then you aren't flying anymore.

All our aircraft in our fleet are operating when they haven't been hit by ground service equipment :roll: and we already have the first 3 additional spring aircraft on the property. Believe whoever you'd like, but the fact that we're operating our fleet and continuing to onboard additional aircraft would seem to indicate that we're paying our lessors and that you're posting rumors to drive an agenda.
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