With four of its planes having been seized earlier this month, Flair Airlines has been forced to adjust its plans for the Waterloo International Airport.
“We will be making some adjustments to our spring summer schedule as a result of the events a few weeks ago,” Garth Lund, the airline’s chief commercial officer, told reporters on Friday while also reaffirming the company’s commitment to the area.
“Kitchener-Waterloo is a really critical key market for Flair. It’s one of our seven operating bases.”
The company will be suspending service between Waterloo International Airport and Edmonton although it still plans to launch its new service to Abbotsford, B.C. in May.
“We will be preserving the rest of the routes. We’ll still be launching Abbotsford this summer and Puerto Vallarta from the winter season,” he noted.
Lund told reporters that while Flair had initially hoped to grow capacity by 30 per cent this summer, it will now temper that move to 15 per cent.
“So particularly in the next couple of months, there won’t necessarily be that growth coming through,” he explained. “But by the time we get to July, August, when people really want to have, we’ll be there and the growth will be there.”
The airline was initially to have a third plane begin flying out of Waterloo International Airport by June, but one of the four planes seized earlier was based there which left it with just the one.
The company will not get to three this summer but will return to having a second plane based at the airport in Breslau this summer.
“So as we transition through to the peak, we’ll have it there through the peak of summer and onward from there,” Flair CEO Stephen Jones said.
The company also released details of an economic impact study it commissioned InterVistas to do both nationally and locally on Flair’s impact.
“It’s not just the jobs that we create, but it’s the connectivity that we bring and the economic activity that flows from that,” Jones explained.
The report said that while Flair currently has around 1,100 employees, the spinoffs from that currently create another 4,700 jobs as well and over $890 million in economic output — a number which includes tourist spending as well as employment.
Locally, the airline says it was responsible for $83.7 million in economic output when one factors in employment and tourism dollars.
“So for the year ending 2022, our activities in Kitchener Waterloo region resulted in 188 full-time employees across the region,” Jones said, a number which includes staff of its own at the airport as well as customs officers and airport staff.
“The income earned from those employees in 2022 was $19 million with an estimated average salary of $101,000.”
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