Just as I hit ‘post’ for the Aeroplan Air Transat announcement an email notification popped up with another press release from Aeroplan – “Aeroplan and Flair Airlines Announce Preferred Partnership”
Now we have another leisure airline being added and this one is an Ultra Low Cost Carrier. Part of me was hoping we wouldn’t see this sort of partnership, I mean Air Transat is one thing, but Flair Airlines is bare bones where you have to pay for everything (carry on bag fees, airport counter fees etc), it’s no Air Canada, it’s no WestJet but again it is an airline the average Canadian who travels less than once a year would fly to visit friends or family across Canada. It once again makes sense for a portion of Aeroplan members who only collect a few miles here and there – they aren’t going to earn enough miles to fly to Australia and need some closer in options.
Starting July 2020,
Aeroplan Members will be able to both earn Aeroplan Miles when booking
flights on Flair routes and redeem for flights at fixed-rate fares.
“The addition of Flair Airlines as a preferred partner airline further strengthens our air offering in Canada for Aeroplan Members come July 2020,” said Jeremy Rabe,
Chief Executive Officer, Aimia. “In addition to providing members with
the ability to fly any airline, anywhere, this relationship with Flair
will give our members exceptional value for popular Western Canada routes.”
When flying with Flair Airlines, a Canadian
low-fare airline, Aeroplan Members will earn Aeroplan Miles for their
flight and ancillary product purchases and have the ability to redeem
for Flair flights at fixed-rate fares. The relationship with Flair
Airlines will give Aeroplan Members new redemption options, particularly
those travelling out of Flair’s Edmonton hub, extending from coast to coast and upcoming southern destinations.
Flair Airlines is a young airline that used to be known as newleaf who have been expanding their service across Canada – however with WestJet launching Swoop earlier this year and our already existing airlines Air Canada and WestJet also competing for traffic across Canada we don’t know if Flair will be around in two years, these airlines don’t have a good track record in Canada (think JetsGo, Greyhound Air, Canjet). I hope they are so that there is this option for Aeroplan members but this is perhaps one bit of news I would have maybe kept under wraps just to see how the airline does over the next couple of years.
Here is Flair’s route network as of August 2018:
Aeroplan has now added two new chapters to ongoing Aeroplan Air Canada saga today and we’ll add it to our summary that we always remind our readers of where you can keep
track of it all this news. on our