Lynx Air CEO & President, Merren McArthur, at the CAPA Airline Leader Summit 2023

Transcript

Merren McArthur:Yeah, no, it is really exciting. Canada has only about 12% low-cost capacity, and on some routes like Toronto-Vancouver, until we arrived, it was about 3%. So big opportunity. Airfares are high, and so we're bringing the ultra-low-cost carrier model, and our aim is to stimulate more people to fly, just like has happened in Europe and the United States. Well, we've got We have 6 737 MAX aircraft right now, and we're growing to 9, potentially 10 this year. We're going to order for another 40, so we'll be growing to 46 in the next 4 to 5 years. Our number one rule is to look for where the airfares are high because our model is about stimulation. So if we can bring in our low fares, then we'll stimulate more people to travel. We don't want to create a price war between carriers. So what we've looked at is there are other ultra-low-cost carriers in Canada, and so we're flying to the markets that they don't fly to. to because they're the markets that haven't been stimulated, and it's working really well for us. We've actually just launched transborder flying in January and February, so we're flying to Phoenix, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and Orlando. So that was very exciting, and that helps us spread out the seasonality of the Canadian travel market because domestic Canadian travel really drops off in the winter period, and they all want to fly south for the summer— for the warmth, I should say. We aim to be independent. We've got, you know, one of our strategic investors is Indigo Partners, and they've been very successful around the world with their ultra-low-cost carrier model, and we're adopting the same sort of discipline that they've adopted. It's been very successful with Wizz Air and Volaris and Frontier and now JetSmart as well. So we've got very good investor backing and we want to go our own way. I tell our— in recruitment interviews, I tell people it's our secret sauce because not only do we have the expertise of the IndiGo team, but we also have access to all of the IndiGo airlines. And no matter if I'm ever missing something, and as a startup, obviously Obviously there's lots of gaps that I have to fill quickly. I just pick up the phone to, you know, the CEO of JetSmart because they're the most recent startup, or CEO— I've just spent a whole day at Wizz Air's offices meeting with their management team, and what's great is that those airline teams, they're so excited to help another startup following their footsteps, so they just drop everything for us and make time for us to help us out. Lynx Air is a startup airline.

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