A number of predictions have been made over the last few months regarding Canada being unable to sustain the number of new carriers which have sprouted over the last few years - particularly in light of strong competition from Porter - and will result in the loss of one airline before the end of the year.
The CEO of Porter, Michael Deluce, himself has been vocal on the subject of Canada being too small to keep all the country’s airlines afloat, saying in an interview, “I don’t believe that the traction’s there for the multitude of ULCCs that are in the market.”
Now, The Calgary Herald has taken the step of naming the two carriers most at risk: Lynx and Flair.
Quoting John Gradek, an aviation expert and lecturer at McGill University in Montreal, on the subject of an upcoming fare war, “It’s going to be nasty.”
The price wars in Canada are going to be something we haven’t seen in years.”
The battleground is the crowded Calgary-Toronto route, where fares are already dropping to ridiculously low levels, to the delight of consumers.
The Herald states that Lynx and Flair were offering one-way ticket prices from Calgary to Toronto as low as CAD $69 as of Tuesday. Some of Flair’s one-way tickets along that corridor for later in the month are dipping to CAD $59.
But the party is not sustainable in the long term, and the conditions are ripe for one airline to fail.
Barrie Prentice, professor and director of the University of Manitoba Transport Institute, is quoted as saying, “It would seem at this time that we’re heading for the situation where the music will stop and there’s not going to be enough chairs for everybody to sit on.”
The result, according to John Gradek: “The collateral damage in the Canadian commercial aero space is going to be Flair and Lynx, and whichever carrier doesn’t have the deep pockets might not make it.”
Which ultimately means the music will also stop for consumers. As they say, make hay while the price shines.
