Flair CEO says rival tried to claim seized jets: ‘People want us out of business’

The head of Flair Airlines is accusing one of Canada's two major airlines of attempting to kneecap the discount carrier's operations.

The head of Flair Airlines is accusing one of Canada’s two major airlines of attempting to kneecap the discount carrier’s operations by trying to lease four planes that were recently seized from it due to overdue payments.

“We’ve come in and upset the cozy duopoly, and as a consequence people want us out of business. And we do believe that there were negotiations going on behind the scenes between one of the majors and the lessor to hurt Flair by them offering probably above-market rates for the aircraft we’ve been leasing,” said CEO Stephen Jones at a news conference Monday.

“While I’m not going to name names or cite evidence, I believe that there is much more to this picture than the surface that you see.”

The Boeing 737 Maxes were grounded Saturday after a “commercial dispute” with New York-based Airborne Capital Inc., Flair said.

The four planes were “only a few days in arrears” with about $1 million owing, “which is about half of one day’s sales for us,” Jones told reporters.

“We’re 100 per cent caught up,” he added, referring to payments on leases across its 19-plane operating fleet. The tally does not include the four seized planes.

“The behaviours to date would say that it would be a tough road to see them back down. This sort of precipitous hedge-fund behaviour makes negotiations tough,” he said, expressing doubt about retrieving the locked-up jetliners from Airborne Capital.

Jones did not answer directly whether other payments have been overdue in the past six months: “There’s no business, really, that doesn’t have some delays.”