Calgary Airport: Flair Airlines Tail Strike Sparks Probe

CALGARY — A Flair Airlines jet scraped its tail on the tarmac during takeoff at Calgary International Airport and now the Transportation Safety Board of Canada is picking through the wreckage of what went wrong.

The tail strike is more than a maintenance headache. It's a credibility problem for an airline that's been flying too close to the financial sun.

The Squeeze Was Already On

Flair wasn't exactly cruising into 2026. By mid-2025, the ultra-low-cost carrier owed the Canada Revenue Agency for import duties on its Boeing 737 MAX fleet—a bill that doesn't exactly scream "flush with cash." At the same time, CEO Stephen Jones pushed an aggressive route expansion, a move aviation analysts warned could stretch maintenance crews and pilots thin.

Then there's the price war. Flair and rival Lynx Air spent 2025 locked in a brutal fare fight out of YYC, slashing ticket prices to win customers while hemorrhaging money. Now, with one aircraft grounded for repairs and passengers needing to be rebooked, Flair's operational budget takes another hit. Insurance premiums? Expect those to climb, squeezing margins even tighter for a carrier already operating on razor-thin economics.

The Regulators Circle

The TSB is running the investigation, an independent probe that will pull in the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) and the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) to represent crew interests. Transport Canada will watch from the regulatory sidelines, ready to demand fixes once the TSB finishes its work. The Calgary Airport Authority is conducting its own internal review of emergency response protocols.

This isn't happening in a vacuum. In August 2025, the TSB released a report on a runway excursion involving another Canadian budget carrier, cranking up scrutiny across the entire ultra-low-cost sector. Safety lapses aren't just bad PR anymore—they're a regulatory target.

What Happens Next

The TSB investigation continues. Transport Canada will oversee any corrective actions Flair Airlines is ordered to make. For now, one aircraft sits idle while the bean counters tally up the cost of flying too fast, too cheap, and—this time—too low.