First NewLeaf flights land in Winnipeg

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This article was published 26/07/2016 (3547 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

NewLeaf Travel Company’s inaugural flight arrived in Winnipeg Monday morning with a plane full of happy travellers from Hamilton.

And as Canada’s first ultra-low-cost air carrier touched down, it’s poised to shake up the air travel industry.

NewLeaf flights from Hamilton and Kelowna arrived Monday afternoon at Winnipeg Richardson International Airport and were welcomed with water-cannon salutes.

They’re the first of 10 scheduled weekly flights into and out of the Winnipeg airport from NewLeaf and its carrier partner Flair Airlines. That number is expected to grow.

“This is an incredibly exciting and long anticipated day for the NewLeaf Travel Co. and Flair Airlines,” said NewLeaf chief executive officer Jim Young.

The no-frills carrier — it says it sells a seat and a seatbelt — offers one-way fares as low as $79 including taxes and airport fees but travellers have to pay extra for everything from carry-on luggage to a cup of coffee.

The reaction from passengers arriving on the first flight from Hamilton was full of praise.

“It was fun. Everybody was charming, the crew was great and there was a water-cannon salute when we arrived,” said Caroline Newton, who travelled to Winnipeg for “a big Ukrainian wedding” with her boyfriend, Michael Hryniuk. She said they saved “several hundred dollars” flying on the new airline.

The company has scheduled flights to and from 11 destinations across Canada from Halifax to Victoria. Edmonton was added to the roster earlier this month and Young said they continue to look at additional destinations and hope to make an announcement later this summer or early fall on routes to winter vacation sunspots.

Its presence in the market has already had an impact on the competition. Earlier this month, WestJet added direct flights between Winnipeg and Kelowna, and Young said competitors’ pricing has been coming down.

“We came into the market not to be the only ones to drop fares,” Young said. “We knew the competition would. It will benefit all Canadians whether you fly on New Leaf or the other guys.”

NewLeaf is clearly banking on a demand for so-called ultra-low-cost air travel in Canada, one of the last of the G-20 countries without such a service.

Dan Vasilica was waiting in the departure lounge in Winnipeg with his wife and son who bought $99 tickets to Kelowna for a camping vacation.

“We were going to drive but for this much money it was worth it to fly,” he said. “It is exciting to be the first to fly with a new airline.”

He had to pay extra to check in the family’s camping gear and the prospect of being charged for every extra was not a put off.

“We don’t get anything extra from the other airlines either,” he said.

The inaugural flights was an occasion to announce new investors in NewLeaf — South Beach Capital Partners, the group of seven Manitoba First Nations that owns the South Beach Casino.

“We see it as a great opportunity,” said Jim Bear, chief of Brokenhead Ojibway Nation. “We always wanted to be able to diversify our investments and we believe Canadians have an appetite for low cost air travel.”

Young said NewLeaf is now well-capitalized and is not looking for additional investments.

The beginning of NewLeaf’s scheduled service comes six months after the company started selling tickets. Shortly after that it was forced to stop and refund tickets as a court challenge was filed by a consumer advocate who took issue with the arrangement NewLeaf had with its carrier, Flair Airlines.

In late March, the regulator ruled indirect air service carriers such as NewLeaf do not need an air licence, as long as they do not portray themselves to the public as the ones operating the flight or the aircraft.

NewLeaf buys seats from Flair Airlines and resells then to the public. Flair Airlines, which owns and operates a fleet of Boeing 737-400 jets, is licensed under the Canadian Transportation Agency.

An appeal of that decision is pending but Young said NewLeaf is proceeding with its ambitious national scheduled service.

“From what we understand, the appeal is proceeding and we will be responding with our attorneys as the court requires,” he said.

Although that has created some uncertainty in the market, Newton said, “We had some apprehensions and were not sure it was going to happen. We had our fingers crossed” up until Monday morning’s scheduled take-off. Young sounded confident about the future fortunes of the company.

Those sentiments were shared by some of NewLeaf’s first customer on Monday morning.

“This is very promising for Canada,” said Sandy Rodger, who drove from North Bay where she lives to catch NewLeaf’s first flight from Hamilton to visit her daughter in Winnipeg. She said she saved hundreds of dollars.

After only one month in the market, the Winnipeg-based carrier has already sold more than 16,000 tickets, including two flights that are complete sell-outs, something that Young said rarely occurs so early in an airline’s history.

Barry Rempel, CEO of the Winnipeg Airports Authority, congratulated Young, saying the only way these sorts of ventures succeed is with blood, sweat and tears.

“I’m thinking there were probably days when you weren’t sure this was going to happen,” he said.

Rempel said NewLeaf’s plan is to gradually add planes to the network until they get to nine. He figures the addition of NewLeaf’s traffic will add about four per cent to the annual 3.8 million passengers who travel through the Winnipeg airport.

Rempel believes the addition of NewLeaf will stimulate more air travel especially in a city such as Winnipeg that has one of the lowest travel propensity rankings in the country — that’s the total number of passengers divided by the population.

Winnipeg has a 5.6 ranking compared to 12.8 in Toronto.

“That means there is a lot of room for people to travel more often with the right pricing.” he said.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca