Oh boohoo, Swoop only bringing this up because Flair is doing extremely well out of YKF and want flair to be brought down by the CTA. It was a well-known fact that YKF was offering exclusivity deals, even before flair entered YKF.

Swoop couldn't give two [bleeps] about YKF. Just look at YXU and their sad 4x weekly service to YEG.

Just an anecdote... a friend here in Halifax told our coffee group yesterday morning that he had booked return air to London, ON. His choices for his desired dates were AC at approx. $1,200.00 or Flair at approx. $300.00 (even after extras added). The thought was that clearly AC wants nothing to do with London, ON airport.

It’s clear that Flair wants nothing to do with making a profit. As long as the lease payments are funnelled to Florida, everything is hunky dory.

Oh, AC is just happy to clean up on business fares.

Why scrape the bottom with the low-yield visiting family and friends crowd when airline costs are shooting up? Let Flair, Swoop, and Westjet (to a lesser extent) have that crowd.

Had one hell of a time getting to Vancouver just over a week ago (Air Canada, YSJ->YYZ->YVR). Gather round as I regale you with my first experience flying since late 2019...

The early evening flight out of YSJ was delayed over 2 hours departing because of congestion at Pearson - one runway closed, we were told. Was forced to run at breakneck speed through the terminal (they always seem to place your connection at the opposite end!) in order to catch my next flight, only to be denied boarding when I miraculously got to the gate in time. Apparently making that connection was so unlikely, they had automatically bumped me to a flight the next morning!

Got about 4 hours of sleep at the hotel they put me up at before I needed to head back to the airport. I had been assured that my luggage would be checked through to Vancouver and would arrive with me in the morning.

My morning flight to YVR was smooth and uneventful (the YYZ domestic security line was longer than I've ever seen it, but moved fairly quickly, at least at 6:00am it did). However, my luggage most certainly did not arrive on my flight. After waiting for almost an hour, baggage services confirmed it was still in Toronto and would arrive on an undetermined future flight. I had to purchase a couple changes of clothes in Vancouver to tide me over, and my luggage eventually arrived via courier the following afternoon, roughly 48h after I had checked it at YSJ.

My return flights connecting through YUL were thankfully without incident.

TL;DR - YYZ is a bit of a nightmare to travel through right now, even domestically! I might be heading to Toronto in a few months, and if that trip happens, I'm already planning to use YTZ and steer well clear of Pearson.

I don't get why the thinking is that AC wants nothing to do with London, when they are the one that flies here and Flair doesn't. Also as an anecdote, my dad and his wife, who live in London, wanted to fly to Halifax this July so I compared flights for them. It was $1200 for both on AC or WS from London and just under $1000 for both on Flair from Kitchener. I was helping them with the bookings and was surprised how the extras kept adding up on Flair. Flair has the plus that it's one flight, and avoids Pearson. But, it's Kitchener, so they chose London.

AC to add 2nd daily flight from YCG to Vancouver starting July 1st.
Departure from Castlegar 6:05pm.

The role of Swoop in the WestJet family is as the enforcer. It is there to get into price wars with upstart airlines that are behaving in irrational ways.

They are both fair to provide what communities need. We need airline network that provide interlining and the ability to support business development by having daily connection to major domestic, US and international business centers. Both Swoop and Flair fail at that.

Yeah, it is kind of funny how Westjet used to cry about that being an AC tactic yet now that the shoe is on the other foot....:rolleyes:

LH temporarily converting MUC-YUL to Eurowings Discover for June and July. Finnair A350s operating on wet lease.

https://simpleflying.com/eurowings-d...nair-montreal/

It will be a nice change for planespotters at least.

Lufthansa Group is the most convoluted thing.

Leave it to the Germans to make things complex for reasons. Reasons for which I've not the foggiest, but reasons nonetheless.

Cool to see Finnair livery back in the country, and the A350 is something not seen often in the eastern part of Canada.

LH is using the same aircraft for its YYC-FRA on Eurowings starting in August, so both these airports will get exotic spotting

Flair has a press conference scheduled on Wednesday June 1, 2022 which will outline steps based on the CTA ruling.

This could be interesting…

YHZ-FRA as well.

YUL sees plenty of A350s.

For one, LH on MUC-YUL is an A350. So Finnair is just a change in livery, not aircraft type.

Also TK and AF are regular A350 operators to YUL. AF sends quite a mix of equipment on a daily basis actually. Often, the 3 daily flights are on different equipment each, usually one 772, one 77W and one A350. Nowadays, it's 2 A350s and 1 77W.

But yes, it will be nice to see Finnair return to Canada, (and to 3 destinations no less), even if it's not from HEL. They used to serve HEL-YYZ back before the pandemic. B757, then A330.

As for YHZ, they used to stop there for fuel with the 757s in winter, on their HEL-POP runs. When they got the A330s, the fuel stop was no longer required.

Flair CAN continue to fly following their foreign ownership review.

Key takeaway's from the CTA ruling on Flair.


[14] The voting interests in Flair are owned and controlled 58.3 percent by Canadians and 41.7 percent by non-Canadians.

[66] The Agency, recognizes that Flair is cash flow self-sufficient and forecasts, based on its bookings, that it will continue to be so.

[72] Flair informed the Agency that it has agreed to purchase one Boeing MAX 8 aircraft from 777. Flair has also been assigned the direct purchase rights previously held by 777 to acquire from Boeing five new MAX 8 aircraft... The first of these aircraft is to be delivered in June 2022.

[80] Flair continues, however, to be financially dependent on 777 for the ongoing funding of its operations, including the leasing of its aircraft.

[81] While Flair continues to be financially dependent on 777 for the majority of the existing debt, Flair has demonstrated that it is now in a position to generate positive cash flow from operations to the point of being cash self-sufficient.

[82] ...Flair has demonstrated that it can lease new aircraft without having to rely on a guarantee being provided by 777.

https://www.otc-cta.gc.ca/eng/ruling/a-2022-63

lol.

So now we know. The CTA ruled in favour of Flair. That's good news for Canadians and not so good news for WestJet's dream of returning to an oligopoly...AC has never cared all that much about what Flair does.

A bit incomplete.

In reality, it's more like...Flair can continue to fly, due to the corrections they brought about, following their ownership review.

Let's be clear, because of this investigation, Flair has made significant changes and concessions in the way they do business and their governance.

So they can spin it any way they like, bottom line is, there was a lot of grey area in their business model, in terms of compliance to Canadian ownership rules. The CTA investigation brought that to light, Flair made the corrections, and so they can continue operations.