Like others said, Canada Jetlines shutting down isn't a shock, it was really only a matter of when, not if. Their route network was so limited, and the routes they did operate already had competition, it's an odd niche and rarely successful. Lynx and Jetlines were always the weakest, and most likely to fold. Flair is kind of like the early days Westjet in some ways: connecting lots of less popular routes and/or destinations, low cost but not polished at it yet, and widely seen as the name in the ULCC market (IMO, Canada has never
really been familiar with a ULCC before, not in the true sense at least. Jetsgo sometimes did weird super cheap deals, but I don't think they were exactly a ULCC, especially by today's standards?). WS ended up doing a lot of adding and deleting in the early days, and had so many mil-run routings (YVR-YLW-YYC-YXE-YWG lol, like a 12 trip to Regina haha). Flair doesn't seem nearly as bad in terms of axing tons of routes or destinations, WS used to have so many smaller destinations that had to be cut until Encore came. The equilibrium lots of us mentioned for ages in this thread is happening, that's why none of us are surprised at all
. But then you get a different category like Porter, who resembles neither AC or WS. In fact, for a long time their destination map was pretty stagnant, and not that extensive. I never even thought of it much, moreso because it wasn't even operating at Pearson. Being from Vancouver, I thought of them more as like Harbour Air or something, operating from a small terminal, having a limited geographic reach, prop planes. And like Harbour Air, they seemed steady, popular, and hadn't s**t the bed financially like most other airlines. So they kind of came out of nowhere to claim this new identity, and all of a sudden blow up the paradigm. I know of course this didn't come out of nowhere, I'm sure many people on this forum realized it (esp. with the jet order). But still, ambition isn't all there is, they have to really be confident with the performance, and the # of new route launches as a % of their routes before the E90 is insane, especially from an airline that seemed very much comfortable with their quaint island home. So kudos to them for timing things right, and seemingly done a successful job of expanding without imploding (I sure hope I didn't jinx anything lol).
I'm sure Flair is thrilled, and the rest of our domestic airlines too. I can't believe there are still lenders or business people who try starting a new airline, it's such a huge gamble with a terrible probability. Even Flair isn't a new airline, it just evolved and became something new but with a long history as an operating charter operation. Lynx should've known better, since it evolved from Enerjet, who did similar to Flair for years. But they focused too much on YYC and YYZ and got pushed out. Flair went for Waterloo and Kitchener, and some YYZ but not overwhelmingly. People gotta be gluttons for punishment to start an airline, and somehow lenders look past all reality and put money in
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