Low-cost Lynx Air nearly ready for takeoff

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This article was published 20/01/2022 (1544 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Tickets have now officially gone on sale for Lynx Air, the newest participant in the growing ultra-low cost carrier market.

The first flight of the Calgary-based operation (formerly called Enerjet) will take off April 7 from Calgary-to-Vancouver. Initial destinations will be limited to Vancouver, Kelowna, Calgary, Winnipeg and Toronto.

It launches in Winnipeg on April 19 starting with twice weekly flights to Calgary (increasing to four times per week in May) and twice weekly to Vancouver.

Merren McArthur, the CEO of Lynx, said the goal is to provide really competitive fares — $49 one-way from Winnipeg to Calgary and $59 to Vancouver — and grow the pie.

“We’re not really wanting to take market share from the competition,” she said in an interview with the Free Press. “We want to entice people to travel who wouldn’t otherwise be travelling.”

Lynx is expected to take delivery of its first brand-new Boeing 737 at the end of this month, two more shortly after that and three more by the summer when McArthur said the airline expects to announce additional destinations.

Barry Rempel, president and CEO of Winnipeg Airports Authority, said, “We are excited to welcome Lynx Air to the gate at Winnipeg Richardson International Airport to help provide more affordable travel options to meet the needs of our community. It’s great news to see Canada’s newest low-cost airline gearing up to launch direct service out of Winnipeg to Calgary and Vancouver, adding capacity to these two in-demand destinations and growing the number of airline partners operating out of Winnipeg to further keep our region connected.”

While the aviation industry in general has been devastated by the COVID-19 pandemic, McArthur said Lynx has an advantage in that it has not started operating yet.

“We are monitoring the situation and we have carefully chosen our timing to try to get as much certainty as we can,” she said. “Our tickets went on sale on Wednesday, which is very exciting, but our first flight does not take off until April 7. We recognize the great challenges (caused by the pandemic) but so long as we are responsive and nimble and communicate well to our passengers as changes come about, we are very confident we will do well.”

Flair Air and WestJet’s Swoop have been doing well but Canada has lagged other international markets in the adoption of low cost carriers.

McArthur said while there has not been much capacity in that sector until only recently, she said they refer to Lynx as ultra-affordable rather than ultra-low cost because she doesn’t want people to think that the service won’t be great or that it will be unreliable because it is “low-cost.”

“We want to redefine Canadians’ expectation,” she said. “To do that you have to have a great customer-focused culture which we have.”

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca