Low-cost carrier Flair Airlines has officially pulled out of Ottawa Airport, blaming insufficient demand and “high” airport improvement fees charged to passengers.
Flair, which began serving Ottawa in 2021, no longer lists the nation’s capital as a destination on its website.
In a statement to OBJ on Thursday, a Flair spokesperson said the airline announced its intention to exit YOW several months ago “due to insufficient demand to compensate for the airport’s high fees.”
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The Ottawa Airport charges a number of fees to passengers and carriers, including terminal and landing fees levied on airlines as well as airport improvement fees (AIFs) that are charged to all departing passengers. The spokesperson confirmed Flair was referring to AIFs, which “then impact ticket prices.”
Ottawa Airport’s AIFs, which total $35 per passenger, are used to help pay for major infrastructure projects at YOW. They are collected by airlines on the airport authority’s behalf and are added into ticket prices.
Ottawa’s fee is similar to rates at other major Canadian air terminals such as Toronto’s Pearson International Airport, which also charges departing passengers a $35 AIF.
Flair’s statement said the airline hopes to “re-engage” with the Ottawa airport authority under its newly appointed CEO Susan Margles. Margles, currently a senior executive at Canada Post, is replacing Mark Laroche, who is retiring as YOW’s chief executive at the end of December.
In response to Flair’s comments, airport spokesperson Krista Kealey said Ottawa’s airport improvement and other fees are “among the lowest” of any major Canadian terminal.
“All Tier 1 airports levy an AIF, not just YOW,” she added in an email to OBJ Thursday afternoon. “The CEO alone does not set fees – the exercise is complex and requires deep financial analysis before any changes are proposed for approval through our governance structure.”
Kealey said Flair’s decision to exit the Ottawa market will have a “minimal” effect on local travellers because other airlines already cover most of the routes the Edmonton-based carrier served.
Every destination Flair flew to from YOW except Orlando Sanford International Airport is already served by another carrier, she explained.
“Several airlines fly to Orlando Airport (MCO), however, so Ottawa-Gatineau passengers will be well served there and for the other destinations that Flair no longer serves,” Kealey said. “As a result, the impact on YOW is minimal.”
Flair previously offered non-stop flights to 11 destinations from Ottawa, including Calgary, Cancun, Mexico, Charlottetown, Edmonton, Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Halifax, Kelowna, Orlando, Vancouver, Victoria and Winnipeg. Last fall, the airline announced it would be cutting some flights out of YOW beginning in the summer of 2024.
Previous service cuts
It wasn’t the first time Flair scaled back service at Ottawa Airport.
The carrier announced in the spring of 2023 it would not be resuming its three-times-weekly direct flights between Charlottetown and Ottawa that were slated to start in June of that year. In addition, Flair scrapped its plan to offer twice-weekly flights between Thunder Bay and Ottawa, service that was also originally scheduled to begin in June 2023.
The latest service cuts come as YOW rebounds from the effects of the pandemic, which grounded the majority of the airport’s flights for several years and caused a steep decline in passenger traffic.
Ottawa Airport served more than 5.1 million passengers in both 2018 and 2019 before the COVID crisis upended the travel industry. In 2021, fewer than 1.2 million travellers passed through YOW, with the number rising to three million the following year and nearly 4.1 million in 2023.
Earlier this week, airport authority chair Bonnie Boretsky said the number of passengers using YOW is steadily climbing thanks to new routes from carriers such as Porter Airlines, which has turned Ottawa into one of its main hubs, and Air France, which launched direct flights from the nation’s capital to Paris last year.
Through the first nine months of this year, YOW has served more than 3.4 million passengers. Boretsky said 2024’s total passenger tally should approach 2019’s mark, although it might not get there.
“If it’s not going to be this year, we’ll be pretty close,” she said. “We’re looking to get that number … next year. That’s the forecast.”
