Canada Jetlines, a new airline startup based in Mississauga, Ont., is scheduled to begin service with twice-weekly flights from Toronto’s Pearson International Airport to Calgary International Airport. The airline said it will hold a ribbon-cutting celebration to mark the occasion when its first flight arrives in Calgary on Thursday morning. Canada Jetlines describes itself as a “value-focused Canadian leisure company.” While Toronto-Calgary is the only scheduled route right now, the company’s primary commercial offering, Duncan Bureau, said the airline plans to serve the leisure market both domestically and cross-border with flights to the Caribbean and the Americas. . The airline currently has one Airbus A320 and a second will join in December, with plans to expand the fleet to 15 Airbus A320s by 2025 at a rate of five aircraft per year, the Bureau said.
Low cost companies appear
Canada Jetlines is the newest, but not the first, Canadian airline to emerge in the wake of the pandemic. Edmonton-based Flair Airlines has been expanding aggressively over the past year and a half and now serves 36 airports with 85 routes and a fleet of 18 aircraft. Calgary-based Lynx, formerly known as Enerjet, launched last spring and said at the time it hoped to operate nearly 90 flights a week on nine routes by June, all within Canada. WestJet also has its own low-fare airline subsidiary, Swoop, which launched in 2018 and offers service to destinations in Canada, the US, Mexico and the Caribbean. While those competitors operate on a low-cost, no-frills model, Canada Jetlines aims to differentiate itself by serving the premium leisure market, the Bureau said. He added that he is critical of the business model used by so-called low-cost companies such as Flair and Lynx. “If you’re charging fares that are less than the cost of parking your car at the airport, the economics just don’t work and it’s not sustainable,” Bureau said.
The deepest pockets
Canada Jetlines plans to offer a premium experience to customers that includes departure times that suit the consumer’s preference for the pilot and 174 seats instead of the standard 180 to provide increased comfort, the Bureau said. On its website, Canada Jetlines is advertising introductory fares starting at $99 one-way between Calgary and Toronto for a limited time. For comparison, Flair offers one-way flights from Calgary to Toronto for $49, the same route starts at $99 on Lynx, and you can fly from Edmonton to Toronto for $59 with Swoop, according to the company’s websites. The pandemic’s devastation of the mainstream airline industry is allowing startup airlines to acquire parked and idle planes at a good price, said Rick Erickson, an independent aviation analyst based in Calgary. That’s the case for Canada Jetlines, as the pandemic has opened the way for the airline to hire available talent and acquire aircraft at low cost. “I think the ones that survive will be the ones with the deepest pockets. It generally takes about 18 to 24 months for new airlines to start turning a profit, so with all these new players coming into the market, the question is “who has the deepest pockets and who has the best business plan?” Erickson said. The Bureau said Canada Jetlines plans to offer service to the U.S. within the next three months, although official offers and dates have yet to be announced. Canada Jetlines is an independent airline that is publicly traded on the NEO Exchange.
