feeling hot? Tucson Welcomes Multiple Flair Airlines Routes From Canada

The Arizona city of Tucson is not known for its international service. Indeed, it last had regular international flights in 2017 from Hermosillo, Mexico, and, in the 1990s, from Culiacán, Guaymas, and (briefly) Los Cabos. Now international is back, but this time from Canada for the first time, with Flair Airlines focusing resolutely on snowbirds and golfers.

Welcome, flair!

On November 30th, Flair inaugurated Edmonton and Fort McMurray (in northern Alberta) to Tucson. Both are served 2 weekly using 737-800s or 737 MAX 8s.

Booking data shows that ~2,500 flew indirectly (via a hub) between Edmonton and Tucson in 2019, excluding those who flew to Phoenix and traveled overland. Hardly surprisingly, it was only a few hundred to/from Fort McMurray. If Phoenix is ​​included, Edmonton rises to 115,000+ and 2,500+ for McMurray. Clearly, the Tucson markets are tiny, and Flair will have to stimulate them strongly, especially Fort McMurray.

SIMPLE FLYING VIDEO OF THE DAY

Tucson is Fort McMurray’s first international route in seven years. It had a handful of Cancun flights in 2015, while before that, there were flights (some very time-limited) from Cancun (started in 2014), Puerto Vallarta (2013/2014), Las Vegas (2014), and Denver (2013 /2014). Denver was served by far the most.

Flair's first Tucson route

Photo: Flair Airlines.

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Edmonton and Fort McMurray were the first two of five Canada-Tucson routes that Flair will begin in the next few days, as detailed below. A sixth route, Lethbridge-Tucson, was also to start, but it has been removed from its Flair’s website. Windsor might pick up some Detroit passengers.

As you can tell from the above table, Edmonton-Tucson-Fort McMurray-Tucson runs on Wednesdays and Sundays, overnighting in Arizona.

On Thursdays, the aircraft then operates Tucson-Windsor-Tucson, overnighting again, and on Fridays, Tucson-Prince George-Tucson-Edmonton. On Monday, the aircraft runs Tucson-London-Tucson-Edmonton.

Looking at Canada and Mexico in 2019, Tucson’s largest international markets were Toronto, Vancouver, Mexico City, Cancun, Los Cabos, and Puerto Vallarta. Again, this is based only on those who flew to/from Tucson, not those who flew to Phoenix and traveled overland.

For context, Toronto and Vancouver, both with 12,000+ round trip passengers, each had more than four times the passengers than Flair’s Edmonton, Fort McMurray, Windsor, Prince George, and London routes combined. Will they ever have nonstop flights to the southern Arizona city?

Where would you like to see added from Tucson? Let us know in the comments.

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