Hot on the tails of other airlines, low-cost airline company Flair is abandoning critical routes out of Saskatchewan.
“The Calgary – Saskatoon flight route started on May 9 but due to market conditions, it has been put on pause for the time being,” Flair confirmed in an email to Global News Wednesday.
They added that if demand grows, they will not hesitate to return.
Flair announced its arrival in December 2022, saying they would begin offering flights between Saskatoon and Calgary in May. They stepped in to fill the void left by Air Canada quickly after it announced the end of direct flights between the two cities.
The decision leaves WestJet as the only airline offering flights en route to Calgary, which cost well above Flair’s one-way rate of $49.
“I was sad because now I have to pay more to use WestJet or Air Canada, but Air Canada has so many stops in between so it’s not very efficient,” Emily Neudorf, who was flying to Calgary from the Saskatoon airport Wednesday.
CJ Dushinski, vice-president of business development for Saskatoon’s airport, said the news was disappointing and surprising.
“We were trying to get some of that driving traffic off the road and onto planes,” Dushinski said. “Flair cited that there wasn’t strong bookings which is surprising when it’s a busy summer season.”
She noted frustration from customers and a lack of seat capacity in the market overall.
“There’s a lot of aircraft that had retired during the pandemic, there’s a massive pilot shortage, we are all kind of fighting for the same limited resources,” Dushinski said.
With Flair gone, WestJet is dominating runways around the province.
“WestJet is really building out their hub in Calgary and they have picked up a ton of service for us this year with seven flights a day currently to Calgary,” said Justin Reves, customer relations director for Regina Airport Authority.
With little to no competition in the skies, Saskatchewan residents might be wary of higher costs potentially coming their way.
However, Reves said Flair’s departure shouldn’t cause rate hikes.
“Price is dictated by capacity, so when airlines have more seats available between places, prices go down, when the seats fill up, prices go up,” Reves explained.
He said rates are down astronomically compared to last summer even with fewer options on the table.
In June, WestJet folded Sunwing and their lower-cost airline Swoop into the brand. The Sunwing branded planes and Swoop jets will be no more by the fall, merging into WestJet’s primary fleet.
“We don’t have choices,” said Wanda Jones, who was flying of out the Saskatoon airport on Wednesday. “It’s a lack of options with everything, even WestJet has less options. It is a sign of the times; everyone wants to conglomerate.”
Both airports confirmed they are trying to attract other airlines to the province if Flair does not return.
“We are just over 90 per cent capacity, right around 93 per cent, we want that to be over 100 per cent,” Reves said.
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