Flair Airlines

When a jet in neon green and black comes over the threshold in Canada, the matter is usually quickly settled: that is Flair Airlines. The ultra-low-cost airline from Edmonton is the loud outsider between the big players Air Canada and WestJet. Its fleet consists only of Boeing 737s, and its history ranges from worker flights to the oil sands through the budget brand NewLeaf to a dispute over lease payments. Here you learn how to reliably recognize Flair, which aircraft are in the fleet and where you can best get them in front of your lens.

Flair Airlines at a glance

Flair Airlines is a Canadian ultra-low-cost airline headquartered in Edmonton, Alberta. The airline describes itself as Canada’s leading independent “value carrier,” that is, a budget airline that does not belong to any of the big groups. Its bases are in Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver, Winnipeg, Toronto Pearson and Kitchener/Waterloo. From there it flies across Canada and to sun destinations in Mexico, the Caribbean and the USA.

The business model is classic ultra-low-cost: the ticket price covers the seat, and everything else costs extra – checked baggage, larger carry-on, seat selection, snacks and drinks. There is no entertainment program or Wi-Fi, and the cabin is all economy with three seats on each side of the aisle. If you want to understand how this math works for airlines, read the article How low-cost carriers work. Role models for this model are airlines such as Ryanair in Europe or Spirit Airlines and Frontier Airlines in the USA.

Codes and callsign

• IATA code F8: appears in the flight number on departure boards, boarding passes and schedules.
• ICAO code FLE: appears in the air traffic control flight plan and on most flight trackers.
• Callsign FLAIR: this is how the crew identifies itself on the radio.

The codes are short and unambiguous, so there is hardly any risk of confusion. Why IATA and ICAO codes are built so differently is explained in the article IATA and ICAO codes explained. The C- at the start of the registration stands for Canada – more on this in the guide to country prefixes on aircraft.

The fleet: one family, two generations

Flair relies exclusively on the Boeing 737. As of mid-2026 the fleet comprises about 20 aircraft – the number can change through lease returns or new arrivals, so take it as a guideline.

Type	Count (approx.)	Seats	Use	Spotter note
Boeing 737 MAX 8	18	189	Backbone of the network, domestic and sun destinations	Type code B38M, purple accents in the livery
Boeing 737-800	2	186	Supplement in the network	Type code B738, older generation

The Boeing 737 MAX 8 is the airline’s centerpiece. In 2021 Flair ordered 13 aircraft, financed through the investor 777 Partners; the first aircraft arrived in May 2021. The goal announced at the time was 50 aircraft within five years. Flair is far from that: no further aircraft have been added since mid-2023, and the growth target was pushed back to the end of 2027. Whether it still applies is open.

The Boeing 737-800 now plays only a supporting role. Flair had already leased three 737-800s in late 2018, which went back to the lessor in 2019; today’s -800s are later additions. The manufacturer of all the aircraft is Boeing.

737 MAX 8 or 737-800? How to tell them apart

The two types are almost the same length and wear the same color scheme. A few features still make it possible to tell them apart reliably.

The safest approach is the combination of registration and type code. Note down both, and no sighting stays unresolved. How the individual 737 generations differ in general is shown in the guide Telling the Boeing 737 Original, Classic, NG and MAX apart. And how to track a specific aircraft by its registration is covered in the article Finding an aircraft by registration.

How to recognize Flair Airlines

Hardly any North American airline is so easy to recognize. Since February 2019 Flair has flown under the motto “Plane and Simple” in neon green (“acid green”) and black. Before that the aircraft wore a different color scheme from the early days after the 2017 rebranding.

• Basic scheme: strong neon green and black dominate, plus the large “flair” titles in lowercase.
• MAX variant: the 737 MAX 8s delivered since 2021 also have light purple accents – a small but helpful hint to the generation.
• Registration: Canadian with C- on the rear fuselage.

Older photos in the first Flair design or even from the NewLeaf days are real archive pieces today. If you have such pictures, it is worth cataloging them carefully with date and registration. How spotters maintain their registration collection is shown in the article Understanding aircraft registrations.

Where you can spot Flair Airlines

Flair is a purely North American phenomenon – the airline does not fly in Germany or Europe. If you want to photograph it, you have to go to North America.

Western Canada is the core area. Edmonton is the headquarters and a base, joined by Calgary and Vancouver. In Vancouver the Larry Berg Flight Path Park is a good choice, a popular spot right under the approach path. There you see Flair alongside Air Canada, WestJet and numerous long-haul jets from Asia.

In the east, Toronto is the most important address. At Toronto Pearson Airport Flair operates a base, and the airline also flies from the smaller Kitchener/Waterloo airport west of Toronto. Winnipeg rounds out the network in the middle of the country.

In winter part of the fleet heads for the sun: Cancún, Puerto Vallarta, San José del Cabo, Punta Cana or Montego Bay are then on the schedule, sometimes more, sometimes less depending on the season. From Vancouver there is also service to Mexico City.

The network is in flux: over the years Flair has dropped numerous destinations, including Hamilton, Regina, Saskatoon and Québec City. The airline left Ottawa in November 2024, citing too little demand and high fees. At the same time new connections keep being added, for example to Jamaica or Mexico City. Check the current schedule before every outing.

History: from worker flights to a budget airline

Flair’s roots lie far from today’s budget flight market. On August 19, 2005, the private company Flair Air began operations; it was based in Kelowna, British Columbia, until 2018. It transported workers to resource and construction projects across Canada, in 2006 flew cargo and some passenger flights for Cuba’s Cubana, and used two Boeing 727-200s for that. From 2007 Flair was for several years the exclusive large-aircraft service provider for an oil sands project in Alberta. There were also further charter contracts, such as personnel flights for the Canadian Department of National Defence.

From 2008 Boeing 737-400s replaced the old 727s. The Classic 737s remained the workhorse for a long time; the last -400 left in August 2020, in the middle of the pandemic.

NewLeaf: the detour into scheduled service

Flair first made the move into the budget flight business through a partner. The brand NewLeaf, founded in 2015 in Winnipeg, offered cheap domestic flights from July 2016 but owned no aircraft itself and had no airline license. Flair operated the flights with its own jets and crews. In June 2017 Flair took over NewLeaf’s assets, the brand was discontinued at the end of July 2017, and scheduled flights continued from then on under the Flair name.

Relocation, investor and growth

In 2018 Flair moved its headquarters from Kelowna to Edmonton. In the same year the US investor 777 Partners came on board with the aim of building a Canadian budget airline. The new neon green design followed in 2019 and the MAX order in 2021. During this time Canada’s budget flight market was livelier than ever: WestJet ran its own ultra-low-cost subsidiary with Swoop, and Lynx Air launched in 2022.

Dispute over Canadian control

777 Partners’ involvement brought the Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA) into play in 2022. In March 2022 it reached the preliminary conclusion that Flair might be violating the requirements for Canadian control, and it held out the prospect of revoking the license. Flair objected and announced that it would restructure its board and financing. On June 1, 2022, the agency decided that Flair counts as Canadian and keeps its license.

Seized aircraft in 2023

The next setback followed in March 2023: the lessor Airborne Capital had four aircraft seized over outstanding payments. Flair cited arrears of about one million US dollars, while the lessor spoke of considerably higher sums. Operations continued with the remaining aircraft, but the fleet was four aircraft smaller. Flair has not grown since.

For comparison: Swoop was integrated back into WestJet in 2023, and Lynx Air ceased operations in 2024. Flair survived this phase as an independent budget airline – albeit much smaller than once planned.

Flair in the Canadian market

Canadian air travel is shaped by two big groups: Air Canada with its leisure subsidiary Air Canada Rouge and WestJet, which now also includes Sunwing. Independent airlines such as Porter Airlines from Toronto or the leisure airline Air Transat hold their own alongside them.

In this landscape Flair takes the role of the pure price breaker. For spotters that is exactly the appeal: the fleet is small, the livery unique, and anyone who wants all the Flair registrations in their collection has a manageable but not entirely easy goal ahead – especially as individual aircraft keep leaving the fleet.

Common mix-ups

• Confusing Flair with Lynx Air or Swoop – both were also Canadian budget carriers with 737s but have since disappeared from the market.
• Taking every Flair 737 for a MAX – a few 737-800s fly as well. Engines, winglets and type code decide.
• Mixing up F8 and FLE – F8 is the IATA code in the flight number, FLE the ICAO code on the tracker.
• Assigning photos in the older color scheme to another airline – before the neon green of 2019, Flair wore a different design.
• Filing NewLeaf flights as a separate airline – NewLeaf was only a sales brand; Flair flew the flights.
• Taking Flair for a subsidiary of WestJet or Air Canada – the airline is independent.

Conclusion

Flair Airlines is the neon green splash of color in Canadian air travel. The small fleet of Boeing 737 MAX 8s and a few 737-800s keeps the airline easy to follow, and the history from worker flights through NewLeaf to the seized fleet makes it exciting. If you travel to Canada, especially to Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton or Toronto, you have good chances of a Flair photo – and should note down registration and type code cleanly.