A Porter airplane lands in Toronto in 2020. Porter is increasingly moving in on Air Canada's home turf of Central Canada as well as cross-country routes, while WestJet seeks to counter the threat of Flair Airlines in a shift from the decades-old industry dynamic of sparring between the two biggest carriers.
Porter, once a regional player hovering around the Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal triangle, has over the past 18 months tripled its domestic market share to nearly 10 per cent. Turboprop planes were used when the carrier only covered short distances. Now it has 35 Embraer jets in its fleet and expects 40 more by 2027, up from zero as recently as January of last year.
Air Canada said it continually refines its on-board products. “We take all competition seriously,” said spokesman Peter Fitzpatrick in an email.Flair now has a 20-plane fleet – still a fraction of WestJet’s 180 aircraft, but enough to demand a response from the older of the two Alberta-based airlines.
But WestJet may have the last laugh. In its first week, the fare class topped expectations with more than 100,000 tickets sold, the company said. Montreal-based Air Canada has mirrored this move, remaining in Central and Eastern Canada while scaling back in the West. With Porter’s ascent, it has replaced WestJet as Air Canada’s biggest rival on routes such as Toronto-Halifax, Toronto-Fredericton and Montreal-Moncton, N.B.