Avis du vol entre Edmonton et Vancouver en classe Economique avec Flair Airlines

Why did I choose Flair???

I fly low cost airlines as liberally as I fly legacy airlines, so when I was putting together this trip around Canada, it was only natural I'd try as many different airlines and aircraft types as I reasonably could… Needing an evening flight from Edmonton to Vancouver to reposition for some WestJet flight from Vancouver to Regina, a chance to fly a new Ultra Low-Cost Airline (ULCC) called FLAIR Airlines with a Boeing 737-8MAX came up for £35 (I was booking in the UK) one way and another £10 to get a window seat by the engine, I thought- let's do this!

Having already flown Air Asia & Scoot in Asia, Jetstar Airways in Australia, Spirit and Southwest in the USA and various budget airlines within Europe including Ryanair & easyJet… I thought a flight on FLAIR would be a piece of cake and would make a good Flight Review video & article for the website… which it has- but not how I expected!

Flying from Edmonton Airport

I stayed overnight in the Super 8 Motel just off Edmonton Airport, its ideal if you have a late arrival or early departure and you want to be near the Edmonton Airport as its a huge distance away from Edmonton city itself, at least a good 90 minutes by bus services if you can't use a car in Canada. It isn't fancy but its budget friendly and there are regular Airport Shuttles to Edmonton Airport and its right next to a bus stop which takes you to the nearby town of Leduc, which I spent the best part of the day visiting.

I should advise, the day I was in Edmonton in late November 2025- it was -11 Degrees Celsius out there and the cold was relentless!

Made it to Edmonton Airport a good 6 hours before my flight was scheduled to depart, I turned up early as I wanted to enjoy a bit of plane spotting before darkness came and potentially get myself a boarding pass… Getting a boarding pass didn't work at the Flair desk, but I was impressed seeing a display of model airplanes of various airlines which have graced Edmonton Airport over the last few decades!

As it was late November, the Christmas decorations were out in full swing in the departures are at Edmonton Airport, with a cool Xmas Tree display promoting the local Ice Hockey Team the Edmonton Oilers… I even spotted an AC/DC Back in Black Tour poster being auctioned for charity supporting Canadian Troops!

Around the corner from Security was a Canadian Brewhouse Sports Bar, so I opted to dive in there for a quick lunch before going airside as the big highlight for the day wasn't due in for just over an hour. The place was everything you'd expect from a Sports Bar, but I just had the Sliders and a pint of Molson's Canadian, whilst fittingly sat by an Edmonton Oilers poster!

Eventually I had to go airside, which took about 20 minutes to complete… pretty average since it was mid-afternoon and lots of people were going airside ready for the only direct flight to Europe that day!

Aside from the usual Canadian traffic offering flights to major cities in Canada, the main attraction at Edmonton Airport arrived in the form of an Airbus A330 from KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, which as of late 2025 is the only regular service to Europe from Edmonton, there is more long-haul traffic from Calgary Airport which is probably why Edmonton gets left out.

I had a wonder around Edmonton Airport trying out different vantage points to see if I could spot anything parked up or taxiing around. A few exhibits were displayed from the Alberta Parliament building were displayed as Edmonton is the capital of the Alberta Province, hence why it still gets several direct flights across Canada, despite its short distance from Calgary which is a main hub for Air Canada & WestJet.

If you have a long wait at Edmonton Airport, I do recommend it for spotting if you don't fancy being out in the harsh winters, or if you aren't in Edmonton long enough to get into the city centre for a feesable visit.

Further up the Airport Terminal I found some cool artwork, some of it for sale if you wished to support local artists based in Edmonton, but I was intrigued by the painted up horizontal stabilisers from what I thought might have been a Douglas DC-6, these are displayed just before the checkpoint for the US Gates.

Another display case I found contained some early flying equipment from an Aviator based in Alberta during the 1920s/1930s… Modern flight suits have changed a lot, but the basic design is the same as these items from nearly a century ago when they were flying wood and fabric bi-planes!

Also Edmonton Airport had a fantastic sunset as the day faded and the night came!

Then things started to kick off…

The Delay Kicks In…

So my flight got a delay quite early which didn't surprise me too much as it was only 1hr 15min which is unfortunate but to be expected during the evening. Flair Airlines has a small fleet of aircraft, so I was not too surprised by the knock on… At first there wasn't a lot I could do, but I was in the right place at least being airside at the Airport.

Then the delay got even worse… A delay of nearly from a scheduled departure of 20:35pm to 23:15pm, bit of a pain as I checked the delay compensation under Canadian law and regulations and it only started from 3 hours- this delay would be about 15 minutes shy of that and even less if they made up time flying towards Vancouver. However it wasn't all bad as Flair sent a separate email offering a refreshment voucher of CAD/$8 (£4.30p)

There was this chic looking bar near where I was sitting, so I ordered a Manhattan cocktail which was about CAD/$15 (£8), so my voucher covered half the cost and it also came with this cool toasted mushroom and they used a smoke machine to add some flavour to it. Overall it was really nice and I was pleased to be only paying about £4 for a crafted cocktail, with Flair paying half the bill!

The cocktail was nice, but things were about to get even sillier…

My Flair Airlines flight gained an even worse delay, meaning we were not going to be leaving Edmonton Airport until… 01:20am the following morning! So our delay was now clocking a very unflattering near 5 Hours!!! 

The "Reason" for the second push back was an "IT Glitch" which affected them trying to reschedule the flight for the first delayed departure… However I will later present and explain a possible third scenario which to me- seemed more likely! 

Given the unholy delay awaiting me, I opted to grab a dinner at Edmonton Airport as I didn't have much else to do, so I went with what seemed like the cheapest option and go for a burger & root beer from a burger bar called "Wheels Up"… Whilst enjoying this, I looked again at some other possible options, just in case the flight got cancelled as I had to fly with WestJet out of Vancouver the following morning.

The good news is I was now within my rights to peruse compensation for this unfortunate mess! I would be entitled at this time to seek CA/$400 (£215), which would be quite the profit for myself on a flight that cost me £45 (CA/$84). I spoke to some Flair ground employees about how to go about sorting this and I got some information on how to claim, so whilst I was waiting for my flight to turn up… I went onto the Flair website and began to put through my claim, adding some screenshots of the delay and emails from Flair themselves.

The next several hours passed and with the other flights going on time, Edmonton Airport was looking more and more like a ghost town… very eerie but also kind of fun to have a whole airport to myself, alongside the other 180 passengers also on the same delayed flight as me!

Another Flair flight to Abbotsford was also severely delayed, but they got out of Edmonton about 90 minutes before us, there were some very unhappy people on that flight.

Eventually, the Flair Airlines plane due to come and get us finally left Vancouver Airport for Edmonton Airport! I looked this aircraft up on FR24 and noticed its flights today were all delayed, but tellingly- November 20th was also the first flight this plane had done in almost 3 weeks… I wonder if there was a maintenance issue involving the plane so it couldn't fly the flights it was intended to? Its a possibility, but would be a more sensible explanation to the reasonings on the two emails I got off Flair Airlines… also they probably don't want to tell most passengers that their Boeing 737-MAX had a technical problem in this day and age!

Eventually the plane arrived into Edmonton Airport and it was time to board our very delayed flight over to Vancouver… I wrote off the Vancouver hotel I was meant to be staying in as we would be arriving around 03:00AM local time, and my first WestJet flight was at 06:30am… 

Flair Airlines F8-825!

As you saw on the FR24 screenshot, our flight was being operated by Flair Airlines Boeing 737-8MAX, C-FLKC, built in June 2021 and delivered brand new to Flair Airlines, the aircraft has been owned and flown by the airline most its life, apart from a 6 month lease from November 2023 to March 2024 when it went to Australia and flew for the short lived BONZA budget airline… I was able to get a quick shot of the plane as I boarded… this is definitely, without a doubt, the worst delay I've ever had in 25 years of flying on airlines in over 400+ Flights!

A pretty basic Boeing Sky Interior on this Flair Boeing 737-8MAX which had capacity for 189 passengers on a full load. The passengers boarded quickly as we were all desperate to get to Vancouver before the sun rose again! Despite the basic budget airline cabin, the seat did have a device holder and a back seat pocket with a safety card and onboard menu provided…

With everyone onboard, the crew ready to go and everything all caught up on, we were good to go and the pilots tried to ensure we could get a quick taxi and arrange a direct arrival so we could make up the delay as best they could. I think the crew onboard might even have been a stand by crew- but they didn't mention it… This delay was a very similar experience to that of this easyJet flight (below) I took in early 2025.

We had a short taxi to the Runway, the crew did a manual safety demonstration… getting photos at night is never an easy thing to pull off…

The lights were dimmed into almost total darkness except a little strip of blue mood lighting, probably to allow people to sleep as it was now a short-haul Red Eye flight of roughly 1hr 20min flying time… We eventually left Edmonton Airport, which was fantastic for most people, however not for myself as I knew I'd be back here in about 5 hours time- but more on that on the next report article!

Here's a look at the inflight menu from Flair Airlines… The crew announced they "would not be doing a service due to the short nature of the flight"… I call rubbish on that as the flight was 1hr 20min and they could have at least done a round offering cup water… I have done Ryanair and easyJet flights where they've done a full cart service on 45 minute flights. A minor first world problem I know, but it was a bit of an unwanted slap in the face after the last several hours.

I slept most of the flight, must have been a good 45 minutes of power napping, but I woke up as we started our arrival into Vancouver Airport, I just about got this shot of the Vancouver city from our arrival… its not brilliant.

We pretty much touched down into Vancouver Airport at 03:00AM local time, we should have originally landed here at 21:35pm the previous evening. There was a sense of relief on my end that we had made it!

We parked at Gate 22, I held back as most the other passengers got off the plane so I could grab a photo of the cabin on the way out. I thanked the crew as I left as this couldn't have been a pleasant shift for them to do and it was off into the Terminal to find my WestJet flight… that would take me straight back to Edmonton Airport and further afield- but more on that next time!

Epilogue- Getting Compensated!

So with regards to the compensation… I filed my claim quite promptly and by midday on November 21st 2025, the airline had sent me the email and customer referral number confirming I would be entitled to compensation and the process would take 4-6 weeks, however with Christmas looming, I thought it would be a bit longer to deal with…

A few days after the New Year began on January 6th 2026, I got an email from Flair that basically wanted the last details to send over the compensation. I had two options- Take the CA/$400 as a bank transfer or get a CA/$500 Travel Voucher to use on future bookings with Flair Airlines… Now I don't live in Canada and Flair doesn't offer flight from the UK like WestJet or Air Canada, so I took the CA/$400 (£215) "Cash Compensation" option. 

They said it would take 2-4 business days to get it to my account, however I received it in under 24 Hours! So the matter was resolved by January 8th 2026, despite the issues having occurred on November 20th 2025- about six weeks… Overall I was pleased to be compensated and found it quite an easy process despite the long wait… 

I don't know why this couldn't have been done in half the time, but I am not privy to what goes on behind the scenes at Flair in their admin department.