Good morning from Edmonton International Airport!
My name is Alex, and welcome back to the channel.
Today’s video was filmed back in January this year, where I’m flying with Flair Airlines,
from here in Edmonton over to Toronto.
Flair Airlines is a Canadian low-cost carrier that flies a fleet of Boeing 737-400s and
737-800s, currently serving destinations in British Columbia, Alberta, and Ontario.
Check-in went smoothly enough, I had done the online check-in the day before, and I
arrived nice and early, so there was no wait for bag drop.
As a low-cost carrier, Flair does charge for baggage, but they encourage people to pay
for checked bags rather than carry-ons, and that’s reflected in the prices.
You’re still allowed a free personal item provided it fits underneath the seat in front.
Full disclosure though, the ticket for this flight was actually paid for by Flair.
However, they haven’t seen this video beforehand, so these are my own thoughts and opinions.
Now, nearly every time I’ve flown out of Edmonton, I’ve always turned right after
security to fly out of the older gates.
Today though, we’re leaving from gate 70, on the other end of the terminal!
The difference is... immediate!
The high ceilings are fantastic, and the architecture is really welcoming.
Further down, there’s also this impressive living wall of plants as well as a few more shops.
Edmonton International has a very linear design, so gate 70 is a bit of a walk, but there are
some moving sidewalks after a certain point.
Unlike… another airport in Alberta did with their expansion, Edmonton got the seating
area here just right.
There’s plenty of space to sit but also enough for foot traffic to pass through easily.
After a bit of waiting, our aircraft taxied in from Vancouver - this 9-year-old Boeing
737-800, registered as...
Tail 803, as Flair calls it, was originally delivered to Air Berlin in 2011, then flew
in Thailand for a couple years, and eventually joined Flair’s fleet in 2019.
I’ve flown on this aircraft before, but it is arguably the nicest one of Flair’s
three 737-800s, seeing as it’s the only one with Boeing Sky Interior.
So, let’s go see what Flair Airlines is like on this longer domestic flight.
Like other low cost carriers, you can book some one- or even two-stop flights with Flair.
This particular one flies Vancouver-Edmonton-Toronto, and transiting passengers stay on board during
these short stopovers, so the boarding footage isn’t great.
My seat for today though is 16A, an exit row seat with more than enough legroom for me.
At each seat, Flair has a safety card and a buy-on-board menu, which I’ll go over later.
There’s also some additional storage in the pocket below.
The only downside of the exit row is the lack of a proper armrest on the window side, but
it’s still pretty comfortable.
There are also reading lights at every seat, as well as personal air vents.
I’ll take a better look around the cabin once we’re in the air, so here’s our departure
from Edmonton, taking off from runway 12.
It’s pretty easy to see why this is my favourite Flair 737-800, the Boeing Sky Interior really
makes a difference!
This tray table in the exit row is nice and sturdy, and slides out.
In the seatback pocket is a 737-800 safety card,
... and Flair’s buy-on-board menu.
I’ve only ever flown Flair’s 737s on shorter flights before this, where none of the more
expensive “kit” items are available, so I was kinda curious to try one.
In-flight entertainment on Flair is a strictly “bring-your-own-device” affair for the
moment, so I downloaded a few shows from Netflix for the flight,
which was just fine to keep me occupied.
That said, I highly recommend bringing a power bank or external battery of some sort, since
Flair doesn’t have in-seat power.
However, in fairness, it seems they’ve got an in-flight entertainment app in the works,
and as I’m recording this, you can actually download it.
I’m not sure if it works or not right now, but it’s worth a shot.
I didn’t have lunch, so I bought myself a can of Pepsi, as well as some Pringles,
and the bruschetta kit.
That set me back about 15 dollars total, but it’s kinda my own fault
for not bringing food with me.
It’s worth noting that Flair only accepts credit cards for inflight purchases.
It’d be nice if they accepted cash, much like Ryanair does, but I don’t think that’s
so likely to happen at the moment.
The bruschetta kit came with a small chocolate, a bag of snack mix, some baguette bites, which
were really just croutons, and some dip.
Not the ideal lunch, but it was actually pretty tasty.
I was, naturally, still hungry afterwards, so I also asked for a cup of soup.
(chuckling) Given how much I already spent though,
the crew were nice enough to not charge me for it!
Again, for longer flights like this, I’d definitely recommend you eat beforehand, or
just bring a sandwich.
Flair has 186 seats on their Boeing 737-800s in an all-economy configuration.
The lavatory in the rear of the aircraft isn’t terrible,
maybe a little narrow, but I’ve seen worse!
It was also kept pretty clean.
Now, if you look closely around the cabin,
you can actually see a bit of this aircraft’s history!
The front and back bulkheads are covered in Airberlin logos, and the tray tables also
have German written on them.
About an hour before landing, the crew came around again with a second inflight service,
but I didn’t buy anything that time.
Flying with Flair is a fairly bare-bones experience as you would expect from a low-cost carrier,
but with my own entertainment sorted out, the flight went by pretty quickly.
Eventually, we began our descent into a cloudy Toronto-Pearson, landing on runway 23.
Overall, this was a decent flight with Flair Airlines!
On a longer flight with them, it’s nice to see that you do have more options from
the buy-on-board menu, and they were pretty good.
The crew were super friendly as well, and the free cup of soup was very generous of them.
If you want extra legroom, I can highly recommend the exit rows.
They do cost more to select ahead of time, but it’s well worth it for the extra space.
Something I think a lot of people miss with low cost carriers is the phrase,
“you get what you pay for”.
Personally, I’ve always had good experiences with Flair, and really, as long as you don’t
go in expecting... free hot meals, business class seats, things like that,
it really is just fine.
*ding*
I do believe there’s room in the Canadian market for more carriers between major cities,
and Flair does that very well.
Although their operations have been pared back quite a bit in light of recent events,
it’s good to see them continuing to fly.
Thank you very much for watching this trip report with Flair Airlines.
If you liked the video, please give it a thumbs up, subscribe if you’re new,
and I’ll see you around.