Flair Airlines has four planes seized after falling behind on its leases

Passengers travelling with Flair Airlines were “impacted” on Saturday after four of its leased aircraft were seized in Toronto, Edmonton and Waterloo, Ont., in what the company described as a “commercial dispute.”

A statement from the air carrier called the move by “a New York-based hedge fund” to take the aircraft “extreme and unusual.”

It said Flair would use “additional fleet capacity” to lessen the affects on passengers, adding it did not foresee any major disruptions to its route map.

Company spokesman Mike Arnot said a number of Flair flights were cancelled Saturday morning, but the company had three spare aircraft to backfill those flights.

Arnot says passengers travelling in the next 72 hours will either be accommodated on Flair flights or another airline at Flair’s expense if a Flair flight isn’t available.