NewLeaf Travel Company, which operates out of areas that include Abbotsford, has been renamed Flair Airlines, the company announced today (Tuesday).
This follows the June 7th announcement of the acquisition of NewLeaf Travel Company’s assets by the Kelowna-based company Flair Airlines.
Today’s announcement falls on the one-year anniversary of when Flair and NewLeaf launched their first flights in Canada.
“We are excited to now move forward with a new brand that better reflects who we are as one unified company,” said Chris Lapointe, vice president of commercial operations for Flair Airlines.
Lapointe said Flair has flown more than 32,000 passengers and completed more than 2,600 flights throughout Canada.
He said the company is planning to “widen (its) view of the travel industry as a whole” and more information will be shared in the coming weeks.
Lapointe said that anyone who has a flight booked will not experience any disruption of service, and the current schedule will continue as planned.
Abbotsford Mayor Henry Braun congratulated the company of its name change.
“NewLeaf Travel, along with Flair, began service one year ago, and with the increased service to our community and our region, YXX is proud to have record-setting passenger numbers for 2016.”
NewLeaf first announced in January 2016 that it would offer direct flights from Abbotsford to Winnipeg and Saskatoon the following month, with one-way fares starting at $89.
Less than two weeks later, the company reported it was postponing those plans due to some ambiguity about licensing.
Under a charter agreement with Flair Airlines Ltd., Flair held the CTA operating licence while NewLeaf offered seat sales.
After a review by the Canadian Transportation Agency was complete, NewLeaf was able to launch its first flights in Abbotsford in August 2016.