Flair Summer Expansion

[tbaylx]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-e ... -1.5908240

[digits_]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-e ... -1.5908240

Great that they have expansion plans. But uhm... who will be flying this summer

[atpilot]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-e ... -1.5908240

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.

[montado]

Is it cheaper to fly confirmed on flair this summer than it is to commute on standby passes?

[lownslow]

Maybe they’re just growing to be marketable as wet lease to a country that has their poop in a group.

[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.

[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?

[GRK2]

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?

[Yycjetdriver]

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).

[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?

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.

[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.

[tbaylx]

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

[GRK2]

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.

[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.

[GRK2]

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?

[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.

[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.

[flying4dollars]

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

[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?

[flying4dollars]

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?