Region of Waterloo International Airport - YKF

[danbrotherston]

And so we're betting 44MM of our taxpayer dollars (or, 25MM if you want to be generous) on the success of a small startup airline.

I certainly wouldn't invest my money on that...it's a foolish thing to do.  Airlines usually fail...

Flair has been around for 16 years, mostly operating charter and cargo flights. They're not AC or WJ, but they're probably the most serious attempt at a ULCC in Canada ever. You're right there's some risk involved, but if the region isn't interested in the risk of getting a new passenger airport off the ground it should really cut its losses and end passenger service at YKF.

I think it's also fair to point out that much of the work isn't Flair-specific. The expanded runway will make it significantly easier to attract any airline.

This is a false dichotomy. Regardless of what I think, it's totally false to claim the choices are spending 44MM or closing the airport, they literally are doing 44MM in place of a plan to spend 19MM over a slightly longer timeline.

As for Flair, sure, they existed before, this is the first launch of scheduled passenger service. This isn't unusual for launches like this to happen. It's extremely rare for them to succeed.

Heck, our airport has constantly seen service added, then cut back because it isn't profitable.

I have no idea how they are pricing tickets that much cheaper than from Toronto, but I'm going to bet that isn't a sustainable business.

It's the ULCC business model, best known from airlines like Ryanair and EasyJet. Single class in a high density config, single aircraft model, nothing included (not even a carry-on), operate out of smaller cheaper airports. It's new to Canada, but it's hardly a new business model. The only reason we don't have ULCCs already in Canada is foreign investment restrictions, and anti-competitive behaviour by AC and WJ (e.g. Swoop).

I am well aware of the ULCC model. But that model does not cut costs 80% over traditional air travel models. I mean, fuel and crew costs
alone exceed 20% and those aren't reduced in the ULCC model. So they are not going to be able to sustain an 80% cost advantage over AC flights.

And for every Ryanair there a a whole bunch of other ULCC which no longer exist. And that's leaving aside the different regulatory scenarios in the different countries.