Flair apologizes for cancellations after plane seizures, says leasing company in talks with competitor

The CEO of Flair Airlines has suggested four planes were seized from his airline because the lessor was in talks with another airline. Stephen Jones, CEO of the Edmonton-based discount airline, held a press conference Tuesday morning, three days after four of its leased planes were seized. The planes were seized from airports in Toronto, Edmonton and Waterloo by New York hedge fund company Airborne Capital. Jones confirmed Flair owed the company $1m on the leases, but called the seizure a calculated and unusual action. "A million dollars, while it’s a lot of money, is less than half one-day sales for us, so it's not that we were desperately short. We were in communication with them, I was talking to the head of Airborne on Friday, saying, 'You’ll be paid on Monday,' and then this happened in the middle of the night on Friday night," he told reporters. Jones said it's not unusual for airlines to make lease payments a few days late, but added in his two decades in the industry, he's never seen a leasing company seize planes. "We think that the seizure of these aircrafts was connected to conversations with another airline," he said, but refused to say which airline. "As a lessor the last thing you want to do is take back aircrafts unexpectedly and be stuck with them, so it’s pretty clear they had somewhere else to put these aircrafts." Airborne Capital released a written statement regarding Jones' allegations on Tuesday. “Airborne Capital strongly rejects the allegations that have been made by Flair Airlines in recent days in relation to four Airborne-managed aircraft," the statement says, adding the leases were terminated after Flair was regularly late on its leasing payments for a five-month period.<br/>