Will Canada’s Last ULCC Sink Or Swim?

"Now as Canada's only ULCC, it's just our responsibility to — pardon my French — not to fuck it up."

Dear readers,

Flair Airlines, the only remaining Canadian ULCC, may or may not exist in five years, because it has had one of the more dysfunctional ownership arrangements I have ever seen. But as long as Flair keeps paying its bills, Eric Tanner, its vice president of network and revenue, wants to prove to all of you that a discount airline can work in Canada, no matter what Bill Franke (a key investor in Lynx, which folded in February) or WestJet (the owner of the now-defunct Swoop) may have found.

You probably know the knock on Canada — that the taxes and airport fees are too high to allow a ULCC to stimulate the market, and that there aren’t enough big cities from which to draw passengers. But Tanner says his data proves otherwise, telling me that if Flair fails, it’s going to be because the airline (or ownership) messed up and not because Canadians don’t want a low-cost, no-frills option.