Flair Airlines is the worst air carrier I’ve *never* flown with. After my absolutely horrible experience, I did some research and found I’m not alone. In fact, I’m kind of floored that the airline is even still allowed to operate in Canada. My new life goal is to burn (metaphorically) their company to the ground.
But I’m not being unreasonable! I’ve covered my experience and delved into everything you need to know about Flair and why you should avoid this airline like the plague. Including reviews from other passengers so you know I’m not just being a Karen.
This post may contain affiliate links. This means I get a commission if you buy/book something on my page, at no extra cost to you. But please know that I only ever recommend things I have used or would use myself. And if it’s not yet clear, I definitely don’t recommend Flair Airlines. Thanks for your support!
Prices are in Canadian dollars (CAD).
Jump to sections of this article about Flair Airlines
About Flair Airlines
Flair is a small budget airline in Canada, with domestic flights and international routes to the U.S., Mexico, and a few islands in the Caribbean. They’ve branded themselves as an “ultra-low-cost” airline, but I beg to differ.
Their website regularly advertises $19 flights. However, if you’ve ever flown with a budget airline before, you know that price only applies if you travel with nothing but the clothes on your back. There are a myriad of hidden additional fees.
Some additional fees at Flair Airlines
- 1 carry-on bag can cost anywhere from $29 to $74
- A 10kg checked bag costs $29 to $79
- A 23kg checked bag will run $49 to $84
- 2% booking fee when you pay online
- The flat “call centre fee” of $25 if you book over the phone
- If you dare to check in at the airport rather than online, that’ll be $15-25
…plus tax, of course.
My experience with Flair Airlines
We did a world trip in 2023 and our route involved going from Mexico to the Faroe Islands. Believe it or not, there are no direct flights from Cancun to Vagar! So we planned to stop for a few days at my parents’ house in Canada to repack our bags and reset before heading to Europe.
I found a super cheap flight with Flair Airlines from Cancun to Waterloo, which is just 45 minutes away from their home. Twice as convenient as the 1.5 hour drive to Toronto’s international airport! I’d never flown with this airline before but I was like, “What could go wrong?” (lol)
We booked a flight that gave us just over 48 hours in Canada. Two days isn’t a long time, but it seemed like enough time.
The $152.49 flight price tag was, of course, a little too good to be true, and that became apparent quickly. Checking one bag cost $104.40 extra for each of us. Still, a total of $513.78 for two people to fly from Cancun basically straight to my hometown seemed like a pretty good deal.
Fast forward to the day of our flight.
We’re due to depart at 18:50. As we’re packing up our bags in the morning Chesney points out that we never got a check-in email 24 hours in advance. That’s pretty weird, so I go searching through my junk folder. No check-in email to be found, but I do find a baggage confirmation email with a small footnote with the booking reference and a flight time of 12:05.
We start panicking a little, but it’s not even 10am so if we leave right now, we could totally make it to the airport in time. We haphazardly stuff our bags and run out the door.
Chesney looks up the live flight departure info on the Cancun airport website and it indicates our flight already left this morning at 9:46. We check the Flair website and it’s showing the same thing, but I absolutely cannot find any updates about a flight time change in my inbox. However, there are no flights scheduled at 18:50, so none of this is looking good.
I’m trying to call Flair, but of course there’s no international phone number. The best I can do in wait in the queue for the chat function on their website. So I’ve got that page open on my phone and we hop in a taxi. I call my parents in Canada to explain everything and ask them to contact Flair on our behalf in the meantime.
We get to the airport and there's no Flair desk.
Like, on the whole board of 40+ airlines showing which terminals they’re in… there’s no Flair. And still no answer from them via the chat bot or the phones. In fact, my parents waited on hold for 2 hours and then the call randomly dropped.
To make sure we got home in time, we booked last-minute flights to Toronto with Air Canada. I’m almost embarrassed to tell you how much they cost, but it’s part of the story. The 2 tickets came to $2,100. So about 4x more expensive than the Flair tickets, and easily 2x more expensive than a normal one-way flight between Cancun and Toronto.
My question is just like… did anyone get on this flight? How would anyone who booked the 18:50 know to show up at the airport in time for a 9:45am flight?
Hours later, we made it home to Canada and I finally got in contact with Flair.
I waited on hold on the phone for hours before finally selecting the call back option. I knew this was a risk, but I couldn’t sleep with the phone on hold next to my face. I obviously never got a call back, but when I called again in the morning it did acknowledge that my number was still in the queue for a call back. Still, after 24 hours, no response.
However, I did get through on the chat bot.
The first person I spoke to told me there was a system error that failed to send me the updates about BOTH time changes. That’s right. The flight we’d booked for 18:50 had been moved to 12:05 (the time printed on my baggage confirmation email), and then moved again to 9:46. And the airline never contacted us about either of them.
Their solution? A refund and $125 as a “goodwill gesture” – this phrase was thrown around repeatedly in all my communications with Flair over the next several months.
I was shooting for the moon and hoping to land among the stars by arguing that Flair Airlines should cover the cost of our Air Canada flights. I never expected the full amount to be reimbursed, but $125 is kind of a joke, right? In what world are passengers supposed to just be like, “Ok no problem, sorry for your system error.”
Girl, you left me stranded in Mexico.
The communication with Flair Airlines continued to get weirder and weirder.
Each time I contacted the airline I got a different excuse. I still believe the system error is the only thing that makes sense, but I heard everything from a “mechanical error with the plane” to the nice and vague “factors outside the airlines’ control” and “operational issue.”
Sometimes these reasons would come encased in quotation marks, making it pretty clear they were being copied and pasted from some list. I guess Flair just gives the customer service team a list of made up excuses and is like, “Pick one! Whatever makes them shut up and go away.”
Eventually, they really decided to just stick with “cancellation necessary for safety owing to a mechanical issue.” No one acknowledged the screenshots I sent of Cancun’s airport, Waterloo’s airport, and Flair’s website all showing that the plane took off and landed with no issues.
I tried to get someone — anyone — to make a recommendation about how I could have predicted or avoided this. Obviously, no one had an answer and just ignored it.
It. Is. Enraging. I’m getting fired up again while writing this because I’m going through the old emails and it makes me want to scream.
This went on for months. I started to go a little crazy, guys.
I went digging on the internet to find the CEO’s email address. I sent him one personally and Cc’d him in much of the correspondence I had with the customer service team. Obviously never heard back. But ayeeee, worth a shot.
When I finally accepted that I really was getting nowhere with these idiots, I contacted the Canada Transport Agency (CTA) to make a formal complaint. Flair’s website and the national Airline Passenger Protections Rights (APPR) don’t even cover this kind of thing because, well, what the fuck. Who would even think to include this scenario on the list of circumstances? Delays, cancellations, lost or stolen baggage — all covered. Standard practice. But how often do planes get rescheduled 10 hours early and the airline just decides not to mention it?
Anyway, I contacted the CTA and followed up when there were new developments (eg. more lies) over the months I was in contact with Flair Airlines trying to get a refund. It’s been nearly a year and I am still #35,457 in the queue. I’m not joking.
But it's not just me! More Flair reviews
So when this all first happened, I’d also tweeted at Flair trying to get ahold of someone so we could get out of Cancun. (Big surprise, never got a reply.) Someone from Business Insider saw it and contacted me to ask if she could interview me about my experience. I was like muahahaha now is my moment!
I told her everything, aaaaaaand she followed up a few weeks later to let me know she published the article, but my story didn’t make the cut. I like that news outlets are covering how trash Flair Airlines is being covered, but definitely disappointed that my drama wasn’t enough.
But I’ve also heard stories from friends and basically strangers about poor customer service and hidden fees. They force people to pay for seats together even when the plane has lots of empty seats! Gross.
TripAdvisor reviews of Flair Airlines
First of all, they have more “Terrible” 1 star reviews on TripAdvisor than any other rating. There are some great soundbites below, and I didn’t even need to filter by 1-star reviews to get all those next to each other.
Skytrax reviews of Flair Airlines
“Terrible customer service. Missed our flight because they said we hadn’t paid for our carry ons and wouldn’t take our receipt as proof. They then claimed we no showed to the flight and in turn refused to refund our flights. […] Had to buy two new flights totaling over $1k, I will never use them again.” – SkyTrax Reviewer Stuart Benner
“Why would you separate a couple travelling together? We just got married too. […] My wife has ASD and a major social anxiety disorder, and was placed between two complete strangers. There were two free seats next to me. This is completely unacceptable and slimy. What a disappointment.” – SkyTrax Reviewer Marco Novy
*NGL, I’m not really sure why Marco didn’t swap seats with his wife, but I guess that’s not the point.
“They charge $80 to check a bag, and they also charge you for your carry on bags, which they invariably make you unpack and re-pack so they can fit into these ridiculously small test compartments. I had a flight with a layover in Vancouver, and they made me pay that $80 twice because it was a long layover.” – SkyTrax Reviewer Rose Athena
Trustpilot reviews
A shocking 1.3 stars on Trustpilot. That’s gotta be record-breaking!
“My flight was delayed by 16 hours. Flair Airlines changed the flight number. Then they forced me to pay again the check in and the luggage fees, even though I showed them I already paid it. I have been sending them multiple emails with supporting evidence, but they persist in refusing to refund the duplicate charges!!” – Trustpilot Reviewer, Anna
“Never, ever, ever fly Flair. No matter how cheap it is it is NOT worth it. Delays upon delays constantly, terrible communication, zero compensation for cancellation, delays or damaged/destroyed luggage. Worst airline to ever exist.” – Trustpilot Reviewer, Kambria
News articles about Flair Airlines
You can click the headlines below to find the full articles from these reputable news sources.
If this hasn't made you go running, I'm not sure what will.
Please join me in never ever using this airline, and warning your friends to avoid it as well.